


Doctor, Give Me The News

by Chocolateflower



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: (Just Imagine), AU, Adrien in scrubs!, Alternate Universe, Alya is a life saviour, Alya ruining something very important, Anniversary of the death of Adrien´s mother, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Mari (just like we know her), Christmas Fluff, Christmas Special, Coffee breaks, Competition for Adrien´s heart, Competition for Mari´s heart, Complications, Disappointment In Love, Doctor Adrien, Doctor-Patient Relationship, Doctors-Nurses Relationship, Dorks in Love, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friendship, Helping out, Hospital routine, Idiots in Love, Jealousy, Love, Love Triangles, Love at First Sight, Major Crushing & Blushing, Nurse Mari, Nurse-Patient Relationship, Paris - Freeform, Prescriptions, Rejection?, Romantic Fluff, Running, Sickness, Slow Dancing, Slow-building Relationship, Stress, Stuttering, Surgery, THE HOSPITAL AU, Tears, Tense Relationship, The Bakery, Umbrella Scene, Unrequieted Love?, What would Mari be without Alya?, Working for Christmas, Young Love, charity ball, doubts, good and bad, in sickness and in health, interruptions, lab, lots of feels, night shifts, no powers au, oblivious dorks, patients, pharmacy, relationships, slow-built, stressful jobs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2018-08-20 09:44:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 39
Words: 41,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8244791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chocolateflower/pseuds/Chocolateflower
Summary: Hospital AU/Aged-Up: "Doctor! Doctor! Give me the news! I´ve got a bad case of loving you!"  Robert Palmer.Nurse Marinette has fallen head over heels for the new doctor working on her floor. While Alya was there to save her from embarrassing herself further on his first day, Alya won´t always be there to help her out.Now that she will have to work by his side, how will their relationship evolve? Who will get in their way? Will he have to perform CPR on her?Rated M majorly due to a more mature scene (Chapter 24). If this happens there will be a warning beforehand.All rights belong to Thomas Astruc and his amazing team!Crossposted on FF!





	1. The Crush-Shock

"He sure is hot. You can really pick them Mari."

Embarrassed by her best-friend´s and co-worker's comment, Marinette buried her face in her paperwork.

"Why do I always crush on a doctor? Why can´t I crush on a nurse?"

Since Marinette began working at the hospital, Marinette´s list of silly little innocent crushes on doctors' hadn´t stopped, but her crushes always faded away rapidly with time, or when the doctor was treating her like a kid or some sort of inferior being.

"You know your crushes fade away nearly every time after two days, right? So don´t worry, just go with it."

"Alya! This time it´s different!"

"Mari, you say that every time."

"Now I´m a 100% sure." Alya groaned and turned over to see her distressed friend. Placing her hands on her shoulders, she looked her into the eyes.

"Mari. Stop freaking out. It´s just a new doctor, in two days, like always we will change to another subject."

"No! I´m telling you, I have a serious crush, and my best friend isn´t taking me seriously. Do you know how that makes me feel? But I can´t hold it against you, because I know how I sound right now and I get why you don´t understand, but this is SERIOUS!", whisper-yelled Marinette.

Alya just sighed, getting back to her own paperwork. Marinette didn´t let her, but turned around Alya´s desk chair.

"Alya, you have to help me, I don´t know what I´m going to do if…"

She was suddenly interrupted by a heavenly voice.

"Good morning. How are you doing?"

Both friends slowly turned her heads in order to see the intruder more clearly. Marinette immediately blushed and tried to respond, but no sound came out, except a high squeak, so high it was difficult to hear. The new doctor slightly cocked his head to the side, as if trying to figure out if the pale-skinned nurse was doing alright. Alya responded for both of them, trying to attract his attention anywhere else than on Marinette, but seeing her friend might burst, she took one of the charts, threw it in her friends´ hands, she got the message and left with an awkward walk. Alya bit back a groan as she saw Marinette walking away.

After getting in the patient´s room, she let out a deep sight and a small whine of pure embarrassment, her face still beet red and didn´t appear to want to cool down. Thankfully the patient didn´t hear her embarrassed whines and she started checking his vitals, desperatly trying to distract herself.

* * *

 

After having left the patient, she discreetly deposited the chart, after having checked that the hall was empty and nearly ran to the nurses´ locker room. There was Alya, waiting for her. Marinette ran up to her and threw her arms around her.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you…" Alya patted her back, releasing her.

"What was I supposed to do, he was starting to think you needed respiratory help." Alya chuckled at her own joke.

Marinette banged her head on the nearest locker, groaning in embarassment. "Did he say anything?"

"No, we only small-talked about the hospital."

"You small-talked? You´re so lucky!" Alya patted her friend´s shoulder.

"Hey, in two days you can talk to him too."

"Like I told you multiple times Alya, it´s different this time." Marinette´s shoulders slumped.

"Maybe, maybe not. Wait it out"

"I´ve never, NEVER reacted like that in front of any of my crushes before! I´m telling you, this crush will ruin my life!"

"That´s true, I´ve never seen you act like that… It´s like your brain stopped functioning."

"That´s exactly what it is. Oh! What am I going to do. You have to help me out Alya! Please help me!"

"I´ll help you, but you have to know that we won´t always have the same shifts. You know that you might have to be with him… on your own. We can´t choose our shifts."

Marinette had a panicked look on her face. "I´ll simply run away… right?" She looked like a helpless kitten.

"Marinette, you can´t do that, you´re at work, don´t forget that. Be professional. Don´t let a patient die, because you are staring at him or daydreaming."

"How? Have you looked at him correctly? I can´t look at him without drooling or making a fool out of myself."

"You only interacted with him once…" Marinette smiled nervously. Alya cocked her head to the side, a few seconds followed and Alya gasped. "You already interacted with him? And you didn´t tell me?"

Marinette sat down on of the benches and buried her face in her hands. "I´m sorry, I was under my crush-shock afterwards, which I still have by the way."

"That must be one hell of a crush-shock. Spit it out now." Marinette sighed deeply.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> For those, who don´t know the title of my story is actually a line from the song entitled "Bad Case of loving you" from Ray Palmer. You can find it easily on youtube.

Flashback of this particular morning

Like every day when her shift at the hospital starts, Marinette goes over her patients´ charts to get acquainted with every possible complication. She mostly did it for the patients she hadn´t encountered yet. Afterwards she makes her own rounds. Every nurses shift started by takingthe temperature, blood pressure and pulse of every patient they had. This morning, she started by visiting Mr. Delayn, an elderly man.

"Hello Mister Delayn. Did you sleep well?"

"Well, yes. Thank you Marinette."

"How is your heart doing? Feeling any pains? Did you take your meds?"

"My heart is doing great. No pains and yes I took everything I was given."

"Great! Did Dr. Mal already come to see you?"

"No, but another young doctor did. He said Dr. Mal took a small vacation and he was taking over his patients."

 _Thank God! I hate that guy!_ , thought Mari.

"Oh, really? I hadn´t heard of any new doctor on this floor. What´s his name?"

"Oh darling you know I don´t do well with names. I only know yours and mine here. I only know it starts with an ´A´. But you know I would tell if I knew."

Marinette giggled. MIster Delayn always forgot things easily, even if he was in his right mind. When his wife visited, she had told MArinette stories about him, involving his forgetfullness. She hadn´t laughed that much in a while.

"Don´t worry about it Mr. Delayn. I won´t hold it against you. If you need anything, you know how to call me." She made the gesture of pushing a button as she excited the room.

Marinette put the chart back and entered another patient´s room with a smile on her face.

"Good Morning Mrs. Chambord."

* * *

After having visited all of her patients, she headed to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Alya appeared by the doorframe, panting.

"Mari, could you do me a favour? Could you please get all the blood work results for the whole floor? I have this patient, who needs my full supervision for an hour. But another doctor told me to get all that."

"Sure, no worries."

Alya dashed away back to her patient and Marinette shouted in the hallway.

"A thanks would have been nice!"

Seeing her friend didn´t reply, she made her way downstairs. While wandering in the hallways she saw every nurse and doctor hunched up together in tiny groups whispering. That meant one thing: gossip and/or rumours. But they were all females, but Marinette didn´t bother to continue her thought.

Marinette stood in line to get all the bloodwork. Since it was nearly 8 am, the line was already long. She was welcomed by Alix.

"Hi Marinette. How are you?"

"Hi. Fine. And you?"

"You know, I´m always happy to work here. You know how people start gossiping when they wait in line here, I just love it!"

Marinette laughed and asked for the bloodwork results.

"Hey Mari, is it true what the rumours are telling?"

"I haven´t heard the rumours yet. Sorry."

"What? Alya didn't tell you? She usually is way ahead of everyone! Well, anyway, apparently there is a new hot doctor on your floor." She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

Marinette was surprised, she really didn´t see anyone at all. If she would have seen a new face, she for sure would have known.

"I´m sorry Alix. I didn´t see anybody new, but a few patients told me a new doctor came in, who apparently is nice… I guess it was him. I´m sorry that´s the only thing I know."

"Don´t worry about it, we´ll all see him sooner or later."

Marinette thanked her and made her way back to her floor.

* * *

The elevator chimed and she got out, looking down at the papers trying to put them in a certain order in order to gain some time, she turned around the corner and bumped straight into someone sending all of her papers flying. She nearly fell over as she lost her balance, but two strong hands helped her not to land on her butt. She rubbed her forehead seeing the disaster around her. The person started apologising quickly.

"I´m sorry, I wasn´t looking where I was going. Let me help you."

Marinette didn´t bother look up, when she saw his white coat. She stepped back and knelt down, while answering:

"No, sorry. It was my fault, I should have been more careful. Don´t…"

But the doctor already knelt down in front of her and reached for the same paper. Their hands touched sending a small electric shockwave to both of them and both looked up.

 

Funny that she was about to say that she didn´t need his help...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *demonic laughter* Cliffhanger! 
> 
> I hoped you liked this little update. I just wanted to say that every name I use doesn´t refer to any person. I tried to come up with other names, but my imagination has its limits. So I´m sorry if the characters´ name correspond to someone you know. It was not and is not a voluntary action.
> 
> You can always leave comments! I´ll answer any of your questions :)  
> Thank you!


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Marinette saw was green. Not the old, dirty, yellowish green some of the hospitals´ walls were covered. It reminded her of the grandmother´s garden; she loved to garden and to take care of it. Those beautiful green eyes were framed by a light-tanned skin, which accentuated his facial features perfectly. A straight nose, perfectly shaped smooth-looking lips and slightly messy-styled sun-kissed hair, as well as cheekbones and a jawline that were as sharp as a scalpel. Marinette unfocused her vision in order to look at his face entirely and she used all her force to not keep her jaw hanging. Eventually she stopped breathing, the (un)holy view knocking the air out of her.

He retracted his hand, apologized and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. Marinette shook her head to pull herself out of her trance and gathered up the rest of the papers with his help. When he handed her his stack of collected papers, their hands brushed and Marinette turned a lovely shade of pink. Suddenly one of the other nurses called:

"Dr. Agreste, we need you over here."

"I´m coming."

He looked at Marinette again, who hadn´t manage to say one word.

"Sorry… again…" He rubbed his neck again.

"N-n-no, i-it was m-my f-fault." She smiled up to him awkwardly; he was at least a head taller than her.

"Well, I guess I´ll see you around."

He left, leaving a crush-shocked Marinette behind him.

-End of the flashback-

* * *

After having told every detail to Alya in her typical vivid and lively manner, she sat down again and held her face in her hands, sighing deeply once again. Alya, who knew every way Marinette had acted in front of her crushes in the past three years they have worked together, she perfectly knew stuttering didn´t appear anywhere on that list. Sure light blushing, rambling, cute smiling, more makeup… but stuttering? No, stuttering wasn´t one of her crush-shock symptoms. While she started to think Marinette´s crush could be indeed a serious one, she decided not to admit it, to help her friend overcome the embarrassment. Alya sat own next to her and patted her shoulder.

"I thought you only had seen him in the hallways… It´s going to be fine. You´ll see. In two days, you will have a whole conversation with him."

"If you are right, if it is one of my little crushes… than how am I supposed to survive the next two days? Have you seen me?" Marinette groaned desperately.

"You´ll get through it. Stop worrying so much. I´m he…"

Alya was cut short, by the head-nurse barging in.

"Here you are! What are you doing? Get back to work! You just started working and you are already taking a break! I can´t believe it! Out! Now!"

Marinette and Alya rushed outside of the locker´s room and parted way directly.

* * *

Marinette and Alya finished her shift without any other major event. On their way out of the hospital, they didn´t bump into or saw the blond doctor, which Marinette was thankful for (even if she wanted to stare at him her whole life), her embarrassment hadn´t fully died down and she knew she could take another awkward interaction… today at least.

"It´s not too late? Do you want to head out? Or…" Seeing Marinette´s exhausted face and body, who hadn´t even heard her, she decided that they both should head home.

Alya and Marinette were roommates since the beginning of their studies. They had met on the first day and never left one another's side since. They shared a small cosy apartment; they had both decorated with as much colour as possible, without it looking like a rainbow and seeming too childish, to cheer them up after a bad day at the hospital. It was a small apartment. Paris is an expensive city, but they had found something that suited them both.

They decided to eat their leftovers, which consisted of some old pizza and a rest of noodle salad. Marinette, too tired to do anything else, went to bed early. Running around the hospital and taking care of patients was exhausting; she fell asleep as soon as her head hit her pillow.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, she was awoken by Alya hitting her with a pillow. What a way to start a morning!

"Get up sleepy head! We are going to be late if you don´t get ready now!"

Marinette left Land, got up, brushed her teeth, and downed an entire bowl of her favourite cornflakes. She let herself be dragged by Alya to the bus, one hand trying to hold her coffee still. The bus was always full at seven o´clock, so they had to stand, which they were used to.

* * *

Once at the hospital, Marinette and Alya made their way to their lockers, which were next to one another. Marinette was silently thankful that Alya had the same shift as her tomorrow as well, she didn´t want to know how she would "interact" with Dr. Agreste alone. She suddenly realised she didn´t know his first name, the stalker inside her awakened with that thought.

"Hey Alya!", whisper-yelled Mari, so the other nurses didn´t hear her. "Do you know his first name?"

"No, why? Do you need it? We can call him Blondie if you want."

"Blondie? He´s not an idiot!"

"You never know with them. The first day they´re like super nice and the next they blame you for having killed his patient." Alya´s eyes darkened. This had happened to her during her first year at the hospital. The doctor claimed she had killed the patient, because she was a newbie. Quickly it was discovered that the doctor actually had misdiagnosed his patient. Instead of apologizing to Alya, he quitted and got another job elsewhere.

Marinette shook her friend´s shoulder lightly, bringing her back out of her painful memories. They changed into their blue or white scrubs depending on which one didn´t smell of sweat and which ones had been cleaned by the hospital.

* * *

At the end of her day, neither Marinette nor Alya had seen the blond doctor. Marinette left the hospital, her disappointment clearly showing on her face. Alya nudged her shoulder with hers.

"Hey, cheer up a bit. He maybe had the day off."

Marinette just sighed. Her eyes caught a blonde mop entering the hospital. Marinette followed the person with her eyes and saw him. Somehow, he must have felt someone watching and he turned around. Once he saw Marinette and Alya looking at his direction, he waved at them and smiled. While Alya had no problem waving back, Marinette stood frozen, blushing beet red that he caught her starring. But before Marinette had a chance to wave back, his attention was diverted by another doctor, who started talking to him about one of his cases. Marinettes´ shoulders instantly dropped, Alya simply took her arm and guided her back to their apartment.

* * *

Once their door was closed behind, Marinette stated: "I didn´t even wave back."

Alya didn´t have an answer, so she made her way to the kitchen, gathering all the ingredients to make themselves a decent dinner.

Marinette slumped on a chair. After clearing her thoughts, she went to the kitchen to help her friend.

Marinette was more disappointed in herself than embarrassed about not being able to wave back. After eating, Mari took a long, burning-hot shower trying to relax her muscles and to forget what happened earlier. She didn´t blow-dried her hair, but let herself fall onto her bed. She starred at the ceiling. Everywhere she looked, the shadows her night-stand lamp created somehow reminded her of him. The sharp lines of his jaws, his bright hair… she couldn´t stop thinking about him, about their "interactions". Marinette groaned. Why did she have to crush on nearly every new doctor at the hospital? Why did she react this way when he was around? Why did a small wave make her heart skip a beat? Asking herself another thousands of questions, she finally fell asleep, dreaming of one particular person.


	5. Chapter 5

Marinette woke up before her alarm and decided to make the coffee, since Alya hadn´t woken up yet. She felt in the mood to prepare them a decent breakfast, she was getting sick of morning cereal. She made scrambled eggs with toast. As she put their plates down, Alya´s alarm rang and she got out of her room.

"You´re already up? Wow, never thought I would see that one day.", Alya stated as she yawned. They sat down and ate, while they heard the news on the radio station.

Putting the rest of the coffee in their respective cups, they left, after having checked if every light was off. Once they had left all the lights on, they sure were surprised when the electricity bill came at the end of the month; they had to do some extra hours.

* * *

While making their way to the hospital, they chatted about what they should do on their mutual day off. Both agreed on shopping, but it was only Wednesday so Friday was still far away. As they exited the locker room, they saw Dr. Agreste heading to it (the men´s locker room). He looked up and saw them.

"Good morning. I just finished by night shift." He looked exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, the usual bright light in his eyes fogged.

Alya had no problem greeting him, but that was not Marinette´s case, she could only blush. In the end she managed to stutter out a greeting.

"G-good-d M-ornin-ing -Dr. Agreste." He smiled, still looking like he was drained from all his energy.

"Please, call me Adrien." He left and made his way slowly to his locker, desperately wanting to go home and sleep for several days in a row.

Even if Marinette was concerned about his well-being, you could easily see she was on cloud nine.

_I know his name! I know his name! Adrien… what a wonderful name!_

She spent her free time daydreaming about him, alternating between girly squeals and a concerned face. Alya smiled, she was content to see her friend cheered up like that, even if she knew she wouldn´t hear the end of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SHE KNOWS HIS NAME ! WOW! WHAT A PROGRESS!


	6. Chapter 6

"Good Morning Mr. Delayn! How is your heart doing today?"

"You sure are in a good mood Marinette. What has gotten you so happy, if I may ask?"

"Nonono Sir, nurses have to keep their secrets from time to time."

Mr. Delayn chuckled. "Why not? Something interesting happened?"

"Nothing that you should know, that´s for sure. Here is your medicine."

He swallowed the medicine she handed him.

"The new doctor came this morning again."

"You mean, Dr. Agreste?"

"Yes, that´s his name! He is a nice young man; you two would make a cute couple." He simply commented.

If in front of you, you had Marinette´s face and a red tomato, you could only differentiate Marinette because she had eyes and hair.

"Wh-What? Mr. D-Del-Delayn!" She stuttered as Mr. Delayn laughed at her reaction.

Still beet red, Marinette finished her work with Mr. Delayn, who wouldn´t stop laughing.

* * *

She proceeded to head to the cafeteria to eat for lunch; Alya already was with two other nurses, when she sat at her table. She greeted them and started eating.

"I think we finally have a doctor who is going to respect us."

"Yes! I totally agree! He greets everyone! Doctors AND nurses!"

"Well, you two will be disappointed in the next few days…"

"Alya, I know you still have this incident on your mind, but I honestly think he isn´t like that."

Alya didn´t respond but continued dipping her fries into her ketchup and chewing on them. One of the nurses turned her head and looked directly at Mari.

"What do you think of him Mari?"

Marinette, who had been in the middle of swallowing coughed up all the food. She saw Alya smiling smugly and sent her a murderous look, as if to warn her to keep her mouth shut.

"I- How about we wait it out and see how he turns out?" She shrugged. "I didn´t get the chance to work with him that much yet, so… I can´t really tell." Her muscles relaxed as the nurses nodded, appearing to be satisfied by her response. Marinette slumped in her chair and sighed inaudibly, she felt like she just dodged a bullet. They finished eating in silence and after cleaning up their tray, each one walked away to their respective duties.


	7. Chapter 7

As they entered their apartment, Alya threw herself on the couch, whereas Marinette checked the fridge.

"Oh no… there isn´t anything left. Alya!" She called her friend, but she didn´t respond. She went up to the couch only to find her friend asleep. Sighing, Marinette pulled out a blanket and draped it over her friend. She wrote a small note, telling her she went grocery shopping.

It was late so the small shop, which was located near their apartment, was already closed. She had no choice then to take the bus in order to make it to the one, which didn´t close before midnight.

As she made her way through the supermarket, she picked up a wide range of products: vegetables, fruits, rice, noodles, eggs, chocolate, some meat and tampons (she knew Alya and her were running out). They weren´t many customers, but someone caught her interest. She peeked again, her body hid by a pyramid of cans, but the person was nowhere to be seen. Disappointed, Marinette decided to head to the cashier and paid for the goods. With two full bags of food she nearly lost her balance, but she regained her balance. The door slid open in front of her and she saw that it had started to rain heavily.

She remembered she didn´t have an umbrella and looked down at her hands.

_Even if I had an umbrella, there´s no way I could have held unto it and the bus stop is really far away, I´m going to get soaked._

She sighed, she didn´t have any choice, it was already late and she was on her own. The moment she started to lift her foot, she felt a warm hand on her shoulder. Caught by surprise, she whipped around only to be greeted by the most beautiful sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See where this is going ? ;)


	8. Chapter 8

"Dr.A- I m-mean, A-Adrien, w-what a-are y-you d-oin-g h-here?"

As he realized he still had his hand on her shoulder, he took his hand away and scratched the back of his head. Marinette could only watch him with wide eyes, mesmerised by every single one of his gestures.

"Oh! Um I slept the whole day and woke up late, so I had to come here to buy a few things."

He looked through the sliding glass door and back to her again.

"You don´t have an umbrella?" Marinette was dumbfounded by his question. He noticed?

"O-oh. Um, w-well no." Way to go Marinette, one word you managed not to stutter on. Trying to somehow continue this conversation, she spoke up again: " I wou-wouldn´t e-even be a-able t-to hold i-it so…" She bit her lip nervously.

He looked at her two full bags, a barely visible blush making its way on his cheeks as he saw the feminine products. Get a hold Agreste! You´re a doctor! Say something! Think! He cleared his throat and asked:

"Oh… Umm I heard from your friend that you take the bus, did you take the bus to get here?" Marinette frowned, had Alya told him something else?

"Y-yes."

"I have an umbrella, I could walk you to the bus station, it´s on my way so…" Marinette looked up to him with wide-opened eyes and blushed fiercely, clearly unprepared for such a proposition.

"Y-you don´t h-have t-to." With a sincere look he insisted and Mari caved in, unable to say no to his perfect face. If she was on cloud nine this morning, she clearly was on cloud 700 now… at least the 700th. Adrien opened his umbrella and asked if he could help by carrying one of her bags. Marinette still amazed by his gentlemen manners, only allowed herself to nod, not trusting her voice at all. He took one of her bags and they made their way to the bus station silently. On their way, Mari could feel the heat he radiated next to her and her heart skipped a beat every time their arms brushed. The streetlights flickered on the street and reflected the rain on the pavement, Marinette savoured the silence, first because she couldn´t stutter and second because at the hospital, you never had a single minute of silence. They only heard the soft sound of the rain pounding on the umbrella and the pavement. Once they reached the bus stop, they stopped walking and waited. Adrien decided to break the silence.

"Even if we met a couple of times… I never caught your name." He looked a bit embarrassed, whereas Marinette face displayed pure surprise, she didn´t expect him to ask for her name. Marinette was sure her heart stopped beating.

"Oh, umm I´m s-sorry… Mari-Marinette. I-It´s Marinette." The corners of his mouth curled up. At this moment her bus arrived, they broke their mutual gaze and Adrien handed her her bag back. As their hands touched, a small shock ran through both of their arms. Marinette thanked him and hurried into the bus. Once inside she looked at Adrien and simply waved. He waved back and the bus departed. She slumped in her seat, never having felt heavier in her life before and smiled. She was way too happy he asked for her name, to feel any embarrassment from her stuttering.

Alya is going to be so proud of me!

She was on cloud 999!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE UMBRELLA SCENE!!!  
> *o*


	9. Chapter 9

As Marinette opened the door to her apartment, she was greeted by an upset Alya.

"Girl, why didn´t you wake me up?"

"I thought about it, but you were exhausted! And if you had come… some things wouldn´t have happened…" Alya cocked her head to the side and watched her best-friend unpack the groceries. Marinette threw her a box of tampons, which Alya barely caught. She was carefully analysing Marinette´s smile and dreamy face. Suddenly, Alya ran to her room threw the box in one corners of her room, ran back to friend, forced her to sit down, looked her dead in the eye.

"Who did you meet?"

Marinette blushed as she remembered her evening and quietly laughed while standing up again.

"You would know if you hadn´t fallen asleep…" She turned around to cook them a meal. Hearing the friction of Alya´s clothes, she knew her friend was fidgeting right behind her dying of impatience, maybe she was even dreaming about strangling the truth out of her. Alya let out an impatient and irritated noise and Marinette had to force herself not to cave in or laugh out loud. She knew her better than anyone. Finally Alya let out a high pitched noise and knelt down next to her friend.

"Please, please, please! Tell me Mari! Oh great Mari, please tell me. I NEED to know!"

Marinette simply laughed and patted her friend´s head.

"Sit down and eat. We can talk after." Her friend sent her her best puppy eyes, which made Mari give up.

"Alright, I can talk and eat at the same time." Alya let out a relieved sigh, she couldn´t have waited any more. "So what do you want to know?" Alya sent her friend a murderous look.

"Okay, okay, we don´t need to kill somebody tonight." She took a deep breath and started.

"Well, I went grocery shopping and…"

Marinette narrated her evening, Alya didn´t even interrupt her a single time. Once Marinette had finished, Alya squealed clearly overjoyed for her BFF and infinitely proud of her.

After a few more girly squeals and jumps around the apartment, the two young women went to bed and Marinette happily entered her Adrien dreamland.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the last chapter was very short, I am feeling generous and here is a much longer chapter! ;)

Marinette woke up from a nice dream, she knew it was a nice dream, but she was saddened by the fact she didn´t remember it. Alya was still sleeping due to having the day off. Marinette sipped at her morning coffee, while scrolling through her social media accounts, something she hadn´t done in weeks. Marinette cleaned the kitchen up and got ready, applying a little more makeup than she normally did. She closed the front door soundlessly behind her and jogged to the bus station, she didn´t want to be late. While in college and lycée, Marinette had been late EVERY single day.

She entered the hospital and had to sprint to the lockers. _Headnurse Chiara is going to kill me if I´m late, she hates when we are late! AAAHHH!_

After jumping into her scrubs she visited her patients one by one. In one of the patient´s room, she met the patient´s doctor, who asked her to update the patient´s chart and save all the information in the hospital´s server. She decided to take care of all it at the front desk, not wanting to disturb the sleeping patient. She took a seat in front of one of the computers, opened the chart and grabbed the only pen in her field of vision. She clicked it and tried to write on the chart, only to discover the pen wouldn´t work. She spun around in her desk chair, threw the pen into a nearby bin, making a small victory dance as the pen landed in the trash after her first shot. Marinette looked around on the desk and tried to find another pen. She looked under each chart and piece of paper frantically… somehow every pen must have had disappeared.

Suddenly a hand came into her field of vision holding a pen. She directly recognized this particular tanned hand, beautifully shaped.

"I saw looking around for one, you can take this one."

Marinette looked up to him and blushed as she held his gaze. He wore a bright smile on his face. Marinette wasn´t sure, but she saw a small hint of mischief in his emerald eyes. _How long had he been observing me?_ She swallowed loudly. _Please tell me he just got here! Alya always tells me my victory dance is horrible to watch. I´m going to die of embarrassement! Ahh..._

"A-are you s-sure?" She started extanding her hand, not quite reaching for the pen yet.

"Yes, of course. I have several more." He pointed to the small pocket he had on his white coat, right over his heart, showing multiple other pens. She took the pen hesitanlty from his hand, but soon started to squeal internally as she felt the heat radiating from the pen. _From his heat! Can you imagine?!_ She starred at him for a few seconds, still blushing. Seeing his attention was back to updating one of his charts, _Be professional Marinette! s_ he clicked the pen and proceeded to finish her task.

* * *

Later on that very same day, Marinette noticed that she hadn´t seen any doctor in a while, which was unusual. There always was one doctor somewhere, it is a hospital! She first went to the doctors´ chamber, where the doctors have their offices to work in peace and quiet, but noone was there. She roamed in the hallways and looked into some of the patients´ room, only to see nurses, but still no doctor in sight. Marinette decided to head to the doctors´ break room. Theoretically, a "doctors´" break room didn´t exist, couldn´t exist, because it discriminates the nurses and drew a wall between the two professions. At the beginning of the existence of the break room, the doctors made it clear they didn't want any nurses there. They thought the nurses already having the nurses´ station, this room should be theirs´. None of the nurses protested, knowing it would only cause them more problems and they already had too many. Marinette peaked into the room. _Here they are!_ She sighed in relief. If no doctor was there and if a patient needed urgent help, it could all end very badly...

She saw them all with a cup of what appeared to be champagne, but it had to be non-alcoholic. They all lifted their glasses up to Adrien, who looked like he didn´t want any of the attention. The chief of medicine, who was an elderly man, spoke up. Marinette listened carefully, slowing her breath so she could hear him through the heavy door. She concentrated and listened.

"I would like to welcome Dr. Agreste in our team. He graduated first of his class and choose to join us, which I am deeply thankful for. It is an honour to have you here. From what I saw during your first days impressed me, you are on a good way to become a good doctor, like everyone of your team, here in this room." Erevy doctor in the room clapped at the Chiefs´words. He let Adrien speak up.

"Thank you Chief for your honest words. I would like to thank you myself for all your helpful advices. It appears they aren´t here, so I´ll thank the nurses later as well…" He smiled sheepishly.

A few doctors seemed to scowl at his idea, other simply ignored the fact that he brought up the nurses into his welcoming ceremony. Marinette herself was deeply touched by his words. She wasn´t surprised by some of the doctors´ reactions, she even expected them. She decided she should head back to her patient before a doctor caught her eaves-dropping.


	11. Chapter 11

She spent the rest of her day half dreaming about Adrien, half doing her job. She always liked to visit Mr. Delayn before leaving. His family lived far away, so he didn´t see them often and Mr. Delayn was a good person to talk too. She liked talking to him; he always was a good listener and gave great advice.

"Nice to see you again Marinette.", greeted her Mr. Delayn as she sat down on a chair next to his bed.

"So we meet again." The patient´s laugh echoed in the room. "Tell me about your day. Something interesting happened around the hospital."

"You know I like gossiping with you about the hospitals´ rumours, but I´m sorry to disappoint you. Nothing new that I´ve heard of."

"That´s a shame. Can´t this hospital keep their patients a little bit more entertained?" He pouted and she laughed. They talked about other random things. Marinette burst out laughing at one of his stories about his grandchildren. She didn´t register another presence behind her, but only saw Mr. Delayn looking behind her. She abruptly stopped and whipped around. When she saw the person, who had entered the room, she nearly fell off her chair.

"Good evening, Mr. Delayn. Marinette. " Marinette blushed and nodded. She looked back to Mr. Delayn, who was wearing a knowing smile.

"I´m sorry I interrupted, but I need to listen to your heart and breathing for a moment." He was standing next to Marinette, near Mr. Delayn´s head. Marinette could have fainted, she could smell his cologne and it smelled heavenly. She couldn´t stop the dreamy sigh and smile on her face. This didn´t go unnoticed by Mr. Delayn, who started to chuckle. Adrien, who had been concentrated on his patient with his stethoscope, was startled and turned around to see Marinette glaring at the patient, but she quickly looked at him and turned bright red. Adrien could only be confused; he looked at Mr. Delayn again, who had put his poker face on. He got back to doing his task and didn´t hear Marinette sigh in relief. Her shift was over, so after bidding her goodbyes, she made her way to the locker room, where she banged her head a few times on her locker. After calming down, she left the hospital, content to have the next day off.

The moment she opened their apartment´s door, Marinette was welcomed by the enticing smell of Alya´s cooking. She threw her keys in her bag and walked over to her friend, peaking above her shoulder.

"What are you cooking?"

"Just a quick dish my mom taught me." They both inhaled deeply and smiled.

"So did you finally ask out Dr. Sexy?" Marinette nearly dropped the plates she was carrying to their small dining table and gasped loudly.

"Please don´t call him like that! And no, I didn´t."

"Okay, okay. So… did anything interesting happen today?" Alya looked up from her plate and saw her friend had started daydreaming. She smiled smugly and snapped her fingers in front of her friend´s face, successfully startling her.

"Spit it out. What happened?"

"He gave me his pen!" Marinette jumped from excitement in her seat.

"Can I see the pen?" asked Alya with a self-satisfied look. Marinette looked nervous.

"W-what makes you think I still have his pen?" Alya laughed at her friend´s nervousness, she knew her so well.

"Mari, I have known you for more than six years! I know you have that pen on you right now." Marinettes´ cheeks heated at her friend´s comment. To further embarrass her friend, Alya asked where the pen exactly was, Marinette only wanted to bury herself in a hole. Slowly Marinette gestured to her breasts and Alya burst out laughing. Marinette hid her face in her hands too embarrassed to look at her friend. Alya hiccupped and had difficulties breathing correctly, but she somehow managed to stop her laughter. Marinette decided she would keep the incident in Mr. Delayn´s room to herself, she didn´t need to be any more embarrassed by her friend. They did the dishes and watched one episode of their favourite series. Marinette and Alya had a common hatred for every medical series that existed.

After another episode both went to bed, Alya having to wake up early tomorrow. Marinette took out the pen from her bra and put it in the drawer of her nightstand. She pulled out her old shirt from under her pillow and went to her bathroom to brush her teeth. Once she was ready, she flopped on her bed and stared at her laptop on the floor. _No! I can´t do this! I never did this before! It feels so wrong, but…_ She grabbed her laptop and switched it on. The internet had been barely opened, she started her research. She read as many articles about Dr. Adrien Agreste as she could until she fell asleep on her laptop.


	12. Chapter 12

She didn´t hear Alya in the morning, too preoccupied by exploring her Adrien dreamland. After waking up and getting up, Marinette stretched her sore muscles. Alya had left some coffee, which Marinette was thankful for. While sipping at her coffee, she looked around the apartment. If you had to qualify with one adjective their apartment, it would have been "messy". Marinette sighed, she knew she had to clean up, before her parents came to surprise her. Her mother would scold her, she was sure of it. After putting her mug in the sink, she started to put aside her stuff and threw it in her room. She stopped cleaning, once she deemed the apartment to be clean enough. She cleaned her room as well. Somehow all this cleaning, cleaned her head as well. Marinette decided it was time to go out for a jogging. She changed into her sportswear and ran towards the nearby park. Halfway to the park, she decided to head to her parents´ bakery to surprise them, she hadn't seen them in a long time and she missed them.

She heard the doorbell jingle, as she entered the warm bakery.

"Hi Mum!" She hugged her mother and her father tightly, who came out of the back of the bakery. Her parents invited her to stay over for lunch, which she gladly accepted. She left the bakery at two o´clock with a box full of hers and Alya´s favourite baked goods. Marinette decided to take a quick nap. She had a night shift that day, so she forced herself to recharge her energy. She woke up at five o´clock; she had an hour to get to the hospital, so she decided to skip dinner.

* * *

Her first task was to give out the patients´ dinner, which didn´t look really appealing. Mrs. Chambord complained about having a bad headache, so Marinette went up to her doctor to inform her. It was a quiet night.

Marinette stomach grumbled, she went to her locker and got a small sandwich, a croissant and a muffin out. She deposited them on the front desk, placed her feet on the desk and started eating. She nibbled on her sandwich lost in thoughts. She didn´t see Adrien coming her way and leaning on the desk. She snapped out of her thoughts as she saw him set down a cup of coffee next to her.

"For you. It goes great with the croissant." He starred longer than necessary at her croissant and she noticed.

"O-Oh, thank you. Y-you can have the cr-croissant, i-if you w-want." She offered. He looked conflicted.

"Are you sure?" Marinette simply nodded, handing him the croissant which was in a napkin. He sat down next to her. Marinette sipped her coffee, happy to see it was freshly-made and still burning hot, just the way she likes it. And he touched it, so it was a huge bonus too. Due to the fact that many patients had been discharged the day before, Adrien and Marinette hadn´t much to do; it made it more difficult to stay awake.

Marinette observed her… _Boss? Is he technically my boss? No..._ Marinette observed her crush from the corner of her eye, barely trying not to stare at him the whole time. Usually the neon lights of the hospital put nobody under a good light, you either looked sicker than normal, or you looked sickly pale, just like Marinette did. But Adriens´ features seemed to catch the light differently. His hair reminded her of a field of wheat during the warm summer breezes, it reflected the light brightly. The planes and edges of his face were more prominent with the way he faced the ceiling. He looked peaceful with his eyes closed, still munching on the croissant. He had stretched out his long legs, Marinette marvelled at how muscled and lithe they appeared to be and she was ready to bet he had abs to kill for. His firm chest rose slowly with each one of his breath and Marinette started daydreaming about using him as a mattress _. Stop it Marinette, you´re such a creep! …But he looks soooo comfortable…_

Suddenly she heard him clear his throat, she looked at him only to see he was already looking at her. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

_Did he caught me starring? Please tell me no…_

"Where did you get that croissant? I tried the ones from the cafeteria and every bakery around the hospital, but not one can compare to the one you gave me." He explained. Marinette was surprised, but blushed at the indirect compliment.

"O-oh! I-it doesn´t c-come fr-from this side of the town." He looked like he wanted her to tell him more. "S-so y-you couldn´t have found it." A spark of curiosity and something else Mari couldn´t pinpoint made its way in his eyes.

"Can I have the address of the bakery? If their croissants are this good, I want to try more!" He seemed eager at this possibility.

"S-sure. It´s Tom & Sabines´bakery. 12, rue Gotlieb."

"Thank you, I´ll make sure to pass by sometime." She simply nodded and he smiled. Suddenly the other doctor on night shift exited the on-call room and headed towards them. He recommended Adrien to sleep a little; he would take over his watch. Adrien yawned and accepted. Marinette hadn´t the luxury to go to sleep. There were not enough patients for more nurses, so she couldn´t take a quick nap. After a few hours, the second doctor got a call, signalling him his wife was in labour. He had to leave and asked Marinette to wake Dr. Agreste up; no other doctor would come for the rest of the night. Leaving her alone with him...


	13. Chapter 13

Marinette stood slowly up and checked her watch. _3:45 am._ She decided to make a small round and see if any patient needed anything. She halted at one room, where the light had been turned on. The patient complained of some beeping noise, it turned out it was actually his phone. _Seriously? Am I getting paid enough for this?_

She left the patient, went to the on-call room and knocked. No response, even after knocking a little harder. She carefully opened the door and saw Adrien with his head buried under a pillow. She called him with his professional name and his first name, but he didn´t budge.

She came up to his side and decided to shake his shoulder a bit. He only mumbled something inintelligible. Even if she shook his shoulder harder and called his name, he wouldn´t wake up. Marinette knew she would have to be more persuasive. She grabbed his pillow and started to pull slightly; he seemed to notice but wove his muscled arms over the pillow still covering his head. Marinette halted her movements, but shortly after his soft snores started once again. She flushed as his warm arms brushed over hers. Marinette sighed and tried to pry his arms away.

_His arms are soo soft and warm! He really is fit! Oh god, Mari you need sleep… stop fantasizing about him and do your freaking job!_

She shook him slightly again. He looked like a peaceful angel with his blond locks fanned out. Even in the darkness of the room, she could see his sharp jaw. He turned his head under the pillow and Mari halted her movements. Listening to his still deep breathing, she tried to tuck the pillow away from his face, since he had loosened his grip. Suddenly her hand that still rested on the mattress right next to him was held in a firm grip. She didn´t dare move and blushed profusely.

_T_ _hank God he is still asleep!_

All of the sudden he turned around, not even registering he still held her and yanked her on the bed next to him. her eyes widened and she didn´t dare move nor breath. Her heart rate increased as she still could feel his hand gripping her tightly and the movements of his chest rising even if he had his back tunred to her. They were in an awkward position. Feeling a warm presence behing him, Adrien turned around and wove his arms around her. She tensed up as quickly as the speed of light as she felt his toned arms make their way between the mattress and her. Needless to say she didn´t expect to find herself in this situation. Her entire face flushed. Where his body touched her bare skin, her skin was set on fire.

_How to I get myself in such situations? Even if it is a nice one..._

She blushed again at her own thoughts quickly stopping could feel his chest rise and ghost over her breasts. He only had the top of his head tucked under the pillow. His breath tickled her neck and she shivered at the warmth. She closed her eyes and tried to regain her lost composure.

_I´m in his arms... it´s okay, it´s okay Marinette. Don´t freak out. Don´t freak out!_

She let out a muffled squeak, which thankfully didn´t wake him up. She calmed her breathing down. Once she had calmed down and assumed he wouldn´t move anymore, she tried to snake her arm out of his embrace. She let out a soundless sigh as she had successfully pried one arm away. Adrien´s face scrunched up a bit, but soon relaxed. Bending her arm, she blindly fumbled to reach his hand. Slowly she unsticked his right hand from her waist, moving his hand away so she could get put of his embrace. Everything seemed to work perfectly until Adrien´s arm stopped moving with her and his other hand gripped her waist tightly. His face scrunched up, he mumbled something and buried his face into the mattress. His arm came down again. He encircled her again and tugged her closer, his breath now ghosting over her breasts.

How much did she want to sleep in next to him like that... but she knew she couldn´t. Everything tempted her to hug him just as tightly as he was her and be lulled to sleep by his calm breathing. She shook her head. She took his hand again, but before she could pry his arm away, he breathed in deeply and started to stir. Marinette stopped breathing right away, somehow thinking he would fall back asleep. He tightened his embrace for a few seconds, still completly unaware. He moved his head out from under the pillow and blinked. The moment his eyes adjusted to the dimm light in the On-Call room, he laid his eyes on a red faced Marinette. His pupils widened as he clearly didn´t understand what had happened. He saw the compromising position they were in as his gaze drifted downwards. He registered very slowly that he still had his arms around and jerked away suddenly, making Marinette fall out of the bed. She hit the ground with a loud squeak. Realising his mistake, Adrien stumbled out of the bed, falling on top of her, crushing her with his body. They stared at each otherwide-eyed and shocked. Adrien quickly sobered up and stood up, while Marinette couldn´t stop herself from blushing even more. He extended his hand, which she accepted and he helped her up. Marinette tried to look everywhere in the room just to avoid looking at his still sleepy face and scrunched up scrubs, knowing she would burst like a tomato. He rubbed the back of his head, clearly embarrassed by having groped his friendly colleague like that. An awkward silence settled in.

"Emm - Dr. Haben left sooo...", she scratched her arm.

"O - um- yes... thank you... for... waking me up?" he mentally scowled himself as his voice ended in a high pitched squeak.

They were saved from this awfully awkward conversation by a patient´s call. Marinette nearly ran out of the room. Once she was gone, Adrien buried his face in his hands and groaned loudly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another fanfictin writer gave me this idea since I was blocking! I haven´t asked the person if he/she wanted to be named on this website, so I´m not going to tell.   
> Just know the idea wasn´t from me, I hope you still liked it :)  
> Eat chocolate!


	14. Chapter 14

Once the On-Call room was out of sight, Marinette slowed down. She sighed deeply and unintentionally groaned in embarrassment like Adrien. She went up to the patient´s room. Before entering, she wiped her face with her cold hands, trying to cool down her red face. She knocked and turned on the night-shift light.

"Nurse thank you for coming. I am in pain, could you maybe give me something. It woke me up." Marinette nodded and headed to the medication room. Flicking on the lights, she blinked at the sudden brightness in the room. She searched through the cupboards and looked through all their pain medication. Knowing the patient had a central venous catheter, she decided to give him an IV medication, which worked much faster than simple pills. She chose paracetamol, since the doctors had prescribed it in case of pain. She hung the IV in the patient´s room and connected it to his CVC, letting the medication flow directly onto the heart.

After the patient had thanked her, she decided to make a small round through other room in order to check how much the vacuum pumps had extracted; it is a valuable data for the doctors. It took her quite some time: many patients had one and in order to not wake them up she didn´t turn on the lights. She took her time, she didn´t want to face Adrien ever again. Only thinking about what had just happened left her flustered and red-faced. She proceeded to disinfect everything she laid eyes on. Time passed by quickly. Marinette sighed in relief as she saw the morning shift arrive. After updating them she made her way back come, careful to avoid Adrien in the halls and near the lockers.

When she got home, Alya had already left. She hadn´t seen her on the floor, probably meaning she must have been in another wing. Even if she was a bit hungry, she was too exhausted to do anything else than sleep.

* * *

The next time she saw Adrien was during her shift on Wednesday, but she still avoided him.

"Girl, he asked me where you were. He looked like he wants to talk to you."

"What?" Marinette´s head shot up. "Alya, I can´t talk to him! Not after what happened! I think I might have to change the hospital…"

"GIRL! Stop it! You´re 25, now you are going to talk to him!"

"But Alya…"

After Alya´s pep-talk to go talk to him, Marinette made her way to his small office. After inhaling deeply and gathering up her courage, she knocked at his office´s door.

"Come in." She slowly opened the door and saw Adrien alternating between typing on his laptop and looking around all the stacks of charts and papers on his desk. She walked in and stopped in front of his desk.

"What can I help you with?" He looked up and smiled. "Marinette? Good morning!" She scratched her arm.

"Yeah… I-I heard you wanted to talk to m-me..." They stared at one another.

"I-um yes… Sorry for… well you know…" He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "I´m sorry for my asleep self… I-I…" He suddenly stopped as he heard a squeal that horribly resembled one of a fangirl. Somebody barged in and violently pushed Marinette aside. The girl nearly jumped on the shell-shocked Adrien. Marinette looked clearly puzzled. The girl was actually a blond woman with icy blue eyes. Marinette had never seen that much make-up on someone´s face. She had her arms around his neck and grinned up at him. Adrien had a tired look on his face, it appeared he didn´t want to see her at all, but of course Marinette´s eyes were entirely focused on the stranger.

"Adrikins! Why didn´t you tell me you were back in Paris?"

"Chloé…" He detached her arms from his neck clearly uncomfortable and annoyed. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, if you had told me you were already here I would have come sooner! You should have called! Your father´s assistant told me. Why did I hear the news form her?" Adrien sighed deeply, whereas Marinette quietly left his office. The usual bright light in her eyes gone.

* * *

"How did it go with Blondie?" asked Alya the next time she saw her in the halls.

"He´s with another Blondie…"

"Whaaat? What are you saying?"

"His girlfriend is in his office…" She attempted to say it without sounding hurt, but Alya knew her better than anyone. She wore a dejected expression and her shoulders slumped as she was reminded of the painful memory.

"Hey, I´m sure it´s all a misunderstanding." She looked at Marinette, who tried to smile in order to hide her inner hurt.

"It´s okay. Don´t worry Alya." Alya didn´t buy her BFF´s smile at all, but didn´t push it further.

"Let´s go home."


	15. Chapter 15

The next day, the weather reflected her mood perfectly. It was pourring down hard and it seemed it wouldn´t be stopping soon, the dark clouds gathering up above Paris. She had forgotten her umbrella, so she arrived soaked in the hospital, it seemed to only have aggravated her miserable mood. November was approaching, she hated that month like the pest. It was always raining and terribly cold, there wasn´t any snow yet.

Marinette heard running foot steps behind her, but she didn´t pay it attention. Many people were runnning around the hospital, even if it was an unsaid-rule that you only should be running when there was a code-blue. Suddenly someone stopped next to her panting as she sat down and started updating a patient´s chart on the hospital´s server. She looked up and her eyes widened. She wasn´t ready to face him. The events of yesterday still plagued her mind, she did´t feel strong enough to confront reality today.

"Morning Marinette. I wanted to excuse myself, it´s just…" He groaned and shook his head. "Chloé is an old friend of mine, she doesn´t take no for an answer. I´m sorry she´s… you know what I mean…" Adrien said at a loss of words, he scratched the back of his head. Marinettes´ eyes, which had lost their spark yesterday, lit up in a second. All her worries seemed to have faded away.

"Don´t worry about it." She simply smiled, happy to hear she only was an old friend and nothing more. He grinned, truly happy to see she didn´t take the incident the wrong way.

"Oh and… I wanted to say I´m sorry… again…" They stared at one another unaware of the hospital´s buzzing around them. Marinettes´ cheeks slightly flushed, but within reason, which she would later on praise herself for.

"Now back to being professional. Could you come with me to see ? I wanted to discuss some things about his medication."

"Sure. Can I finish this first?", asked Marinette as she pointed to her computer.

"Of course, sorry. Take your time." He cleared his throat, embarrassed having interrupted her. Once she had finished, she stood up and tapped his shoulder as he appeared to be lost in thoughts. Together they entered Mr. Delayn´s room. The second the patient saw them, he smiled knowingly, making Marinette blush, whereas it left Adrien confused, but he didn´t say anything. Marinette was thankful he didn´t look her way. He offered her to sit in the chair next to bed, which made her blush intensify. Feeling Mr. Delayn´s mischievious gaze on her, she tried to bury her face in her notepad. Adrien started talking and successfully averted the patient´s gaze away from her. Marinette was greatful, knowing she would have probably combust otherwise.

"Mr. Delayn, I wanted to talk to you about your medication." They talked for half an hour, Marinette taking many notes to make sure the medication was correctly changed. Once everything was set, Adrien thanked Marinette making her blush deeply.

The moment Marinette got home, she threw her handbag somewhere in the entry. She ran to Alya and jumped into her arms, startling her. Marinette waltzed with her friend around their apartment, laughing happily. Marinette pushed her friend on their sofa and started making her victory dance. Alya had never been this confused, her eyes followed her cheerful friend everywhere in the room, she had been so desperate and now she was umping up and down in excitement.

"Marinette, tell me what the hell is going on?"

"IT WAS NOT HIS GIRLFRIEND, ALYA! I THINK HE´S SINGLE! JUST LIKE ME!" She nearly screamed as she danced around the sofa. Everything was now clearer for her BFF. Alya face-palmed at her friend´s reaction. Marinette always made up the worst worst-case scenarios. She genuinely smiled and headed to the kitchen, pouring them a glass of red wine to go along with the meal she had cooked. Marinette radiated happiness.

She had difficulties falling asleep, but once she was, she dreamed of the same person again.


	16. Chapter 16

Since Marinette had the week-end off , she decided to spent it over at parents´ house, Alya being gone visiting her family the whole Saturday, she didn´t want to end up all alone in their small apartment. In order to help her parents, she decided to take over the shop on the Sunday morning so her mother and father could sleep a little longer. They always had supported her through her nurse´s apprenticeship; she could at least give them the possibility to rest a bit longer, when she had some free time and nothing to do. It was more productive to help them out, than to drool over Adrien´s pictures she had on her computer. At first she had blushed when Alya had sent her a picture of him she had taken at work. She had scowled her at first, but in the end she had thanked her profusely since Alya had a serious talent for taking perfect pictures incognito. Adrien in scrubs was... well you can imagine. His smile when he talked to anybody made her body melt and a stupid smile mades its way on her face.

Many of the regulars were happy to see her again. She hadn´t been helping out in the bakery for a long time. She kind of missed it. It was totally different from her current job. She didn´t have to bake pastries at the hospital. She missed the lingering smell of the different pastries and bread, the warmth of the ovens. She missed her parents even... well at least some times, she was still happy to live with Alya.

"Thank you, Mrs. Verdun. I hope you enjoy your cake with your grandchildren."

"Thank you Marinette. It was good to see you again."

The customer flow decreased slowly and Marinette went to the back to pull out a stock of various fresh pastries. Suddenly the door-bell chimed.

"I´ll come in a minute."

"Take your time." _I know that voice…_ Shrugging it off, she took the tray and made her way back to the front shop.

"Good morning!"

"Good morn-" As he looked up he abruptly stopped. She stopped dead in her tracks as she saw the client.

"Oh! A-Adrien… I-I di-didn´t recognize you, sorry…"

 _I´m so stupid! I can´t even recognize my own crush in sportswear… Wow… that shirt sure is tight-fitted… He must have worked out, he´ still out of breath and a bit sweaty…_ She bit her lip and blushed at her own thoughts and whereas he stood there confused with his mind buzzing with questions.

"Marinette? Are you working here?"

"O-oh nono. It´s… It´s m-my parents´ bakery actually… I´m just help-helping out…"

"That… That explains a lot…"

"So… what can I get you?"

"Well, I already tried the croissants, so any advice?", he answered with a beaming smile, which made her blush anew. She tried not to stare at his sweaty hair that was glued to his temples.

"O-oh, personally I would choose the tartelette aux fraises or the tartelette aux citrons. They´re my favourites. Or you can have a Paris-Brest, I just finished them and Papa has a special ingredient."

"Perfect! I´ll take one of each, plus a croissant." Marinette packed everything and handed it to him.

"O-on the house! It´s your first time here soo…" She tried to come with a good excuse. _Offering him pastries won´t make him fall for you! That´s definitely something Alya would tell me… but his smile is so…_ Adrien interrupted her stream of thoughts.

"No, I can´t accept that."

"W-well, y-you have to." He looked at her, feeling conflicted. Seeing she wouldn´t change her mind, he caved in. A new customer entered, so Adrien bid his goodbyes.


	17. Chapter 17

"Marinette can you come? We need your help with this new patient?" Marinette looked up to see a tired nurse.

"Sure." They entered the room 621. The patient didn´t appear to need any major help, which confused Mari. They stopped in front of the patient´s bed.

"This is Mr. Fu. He was admitted for severe abdominal pains. He had a CT this morning, which confirmed Sigma-diverticulitis. Now to why I need you: Mr. Fu only speaks Mandarin, and you´re the only one I know who speaks it... I´m sure he wants to know what´s going on with him. So… I´ll leave you to it."

The nurse quickly left after her explanations, leaving a dumbfounded Marinette behind. Sure she knew a few words, but how was she supposed to know all the medical stuff in Chinese? Marinette looked at his chart first and tried to prepare her speech in her head first. She didn´t want to give him any false information. _Maybe I should call mum…_ She tried to explain to him the best way she possibly could of what he was suffering from, as well that he couldn´t eat solid food for the next few days since his intestins would make him suffer even more. Mr. Fu simply nodded and smiled, being aware that she did her best to translate everything for him and she was giving her best. She excused herself multiple times for her bad Mandarin, to which Mr. Fu kindly responded that it wasn´t something she had to apologize for. Sh was only interrupted once by another voice speaking in Mandarin right behind her.

"Your Mandarin is pretty good Marinette. Stop apologizing." She whipped around and looked up only to see the one and only Dr. Agreste. He squeezed her shoulder lightly, nearly making her heart burst out of her rib cage at the unexpected physical contact. She was taken out of her daydreaming as she heard him speak with the patient in Mandarin. From what she heard, she could easily tell, he was fluent. The two men conversed, while Marinette´s jaw hung open. _He must be a god… he is a doctor and speaks Mandarin! I need Alya to slap me back to reality…_ After discussing for a few more moments, Mr. Fu thanked them both. Marinette simply nodded, still under the shock that her crush could speak one of the most difficult languages on Earth. _Mum would so approve of him…_

"I didn´t know you spoke Mandarin.", stated Adrien with a curious look on his face.

"Oh- emm… (She cleared her throat a little bit longer than necessary) my mother is… um Chinese."

Adrien simply nodded as his gaze seemed to drift over her entire face, taking in her light eurasian features. He left soon after having to assist to one of his patient´s procedure.

* * *

Alya went up to a visitor, who was sitting on the front desk of their floor with an angry pace.

"What do you think you´re doing? This is a hospital, act like you´re in one!" The man with dark-tanned skin quickly jumped on the floor and excused himself, readjusting his round glasses. Alya cocked her hip to the side, appearing to be not accepting his apology. The man scratched the back of his head, embarrassed. He had never been scolded like that, when he first met a girl. He awkwardly extended his hand.

"Hello, I´m Nino Lahiffe. You work here?" Alya didn´t shake his hand, but rested her hand on her cocked hip and raised her eyebrow. Nino realised his mistake, when he saw her typical nurse outfit/ scrubs.

"Oh! Umm- sorry… I´m looking for my bud Adrien. Ehmm- I mean Dr. Agreste." Seeing she wasn´t going to shake his hand, he dropped it by his sides. He cleared his throat embarrassed as Alya openly stared at him.

"Nino! What are you doing here?" Suddenly Adrien appeared next to them. Nino whipped around to see Adrien approaching.

"Well, visiting my best bro in his new environment!"

"Why didn´t you call? I would have gotten more work done, if I had known you would come!" Seeing Alya next to them, he continued. "Alya, this is Nino, my best-friend. Nino, this is Alya, one of our best nurses." Both shook hands, Nino seemed mortified, while Alya gently started to smile. The three of them had a small conversation. But Adrien excused himself, having to go see a patient, leaving Nino and Alya alone. They casually talked until a nurse called for Alya´s help. Before saying goodbye, Nino handed her his phone number, to which Alya blushed. They agreed to meet up for coffee some time and Alya went back to her work, thinking of her knew acquaintance.


	18. Chapter 18

Marinette was standing at front desk, going over some of the patients´ charts. She just had answered a few patients´ calls for help and gave them their medications as well as replaced their I.V.s. Suddenly he felt someone´s presence next to her. She took a quick look, but couldn´t recognize the person. She diverted her attention back to her charts, and continued updating them. The person cleared his throat, attracting Marinette´s attention. She turned around and her breath got caught in her throat.

"Good evening, Nurse Marinette."

"Good evening, Dr. Mal." There he stood. His jet black hair carefully combed and his piercing blue eyes gazing intensely at her. He smiled at her, pleased that she had responded. The mischievous glints in his eyes didn´t please Marinette.

"Did everything go well during my absence?" Marinette groaned inaudibly and continued her work.

"You´ll have to ask Dr. Agreste, Dr. Mal. He was in charge of your patients, not me."

"I know. I wanted to hear it from one of our best nurses as well." She didn´t even want to know what expression he was wearing, she kept focusing on her work. Even if she ignored him, he didn´t seem to get the message and stayed next to her. _Probably starring…_

"Dr. Agreste is in his office. If you´d like to see him, I´m sure he can give you a better update than I can." Dr. Mal hummed, but didn´t move. After observing her for a few minutes, he left her side as we brushed his fingertips on her lower back, making her shudder in disgust. She flinched away instantly.

* * *

She came home feeling sick. Alya was chopping some vegetables.

"Dr. Mal is back…"

"WHAT?" Alya stopped her chopping and looked at her friend. "Please no! Everything was so great without him there!"

"I know Alya. I just hope Adrien stays, you know he took his patients… I don´t want him to leave." She sat down and hid her face in her elbows. She decided not to tell Alya about Dr. Mal inappropriate touching back at the hospital. She didn´t want her to do something that could cost her friend her job. She had already told her about his incongruous flirting. She didn´t know if he did it to other nurses as well, but ever since they had been working in the same hospital, his flirting never stopped. She was grossed-out by everything he did.

"Don´t worry about that. If he had a welcoming ceremony or whatever it was, he´s staying. So stop worrying and eat up!"


	19. Chapter 19

The next day, Marinette was a little late to work. She ran to the nurses´ office to grab a mug of coffee in hope to wake up a bit, only to find Adrien depositing some boxes on the table in the middle of the room.

"Hi, good morning! What are you doing in the nurses´ office?" she asked confused. Startled Adrien nearly dropped the pile of boxes in his hands. Marinette ran up to his side in order to steady all his boxes. He smiled at her thankfully. His beaming face made Marinette´s heart skip a beat.

"Good Morning Marinette. I bought all of you… something… well as a thank you gift." This awakened Marinette´s curiosity. She looked at the boxes, only to see a familiar logo on the multiple boxes.

"Are these from my parents´ bakery?" Adrien took the nearest box and opened it, only to find a huge chocolate cake. Both smiled at the beautiful sight.

"Yeah… I wanted to thank everybody. You were all welcoming."

"Think you can buy us with cake?" Adrien froze, so did Marinette. "I m-mean… you can totally buy me with cake…" _Stop digging your own grave Mari!_ _Is this your attempt at flirting? Man… Alya would be face-palming right now…_ Panicking she took a piece of cake and stuffed it in her mouth. _Great now I have chocolate all over my face! Nice going Mari!_ Adrien looked at her wide-eyed and all of the sudden started chuckling. Marinettes´ eyes were wide open in shock.

"Sorry, Marinette. You just caught me off-guard. Your mom was really nice by the way." He gently smiled and took a piece of cake, eating it way more slowly than her. Marinettes´ eyes bulged.

 _Ooh… knowing Mama, this is not good!_ She swallowed a huge chuck of cake loudly.

"It´s great working with you here." He continued. She blushed under his strong gaze. They were interrupted by his pager. "Sorry, gotta go." He quickly left. Marinette looked around and decided to see what else Adrien had gotten them. Éclairs, tartelettes, macaroons… everything was mouth-watering to her eyes. Alya entered and gaped at all the sweets.

"Am I seeing what I think I´m seeing?" Marinette giggled at her friend´s reaction.

"Yep! Go for it! It´s all a gift from Adrien!" Alya stared at her.

"Seriously?"

"He wanted to thank us, for integrating him in the group so quickly."

"Mari, I take everything back I said about him. He´s perfect, please marry him soon! I call dibs on being the bride´s maid and I want to be the godmother!", said Alya as she stuffed a chocolate éclair into her mouth. Marinette blushed bright red and punched her friend in the arm.

"Hey! I wasn´t kidding!" Marinette took her coffee and quickly went out, before Alya could say anything else.

* * *

"Mrs. Chambord, let´s take our blood pressure." She gave Marinette her arm and she proceeded. "Systole 120 Asystole 70 Pulse 80. Perfect Mrs. Chambord, let´s get you prepared for surgery." Marinette lifted the break of the bed and slowly moved the bed out of the room and through the corridors. "Someone is going to come and get you, they´ll bring you to the O.R. and I´ll see you after that." She put the chart down on the bed and left Mrs. Chambord. She went to the nearest computer, logged in and put the blood pressure results in the computer. Once she was done Marinette went to the front desk to get some more work done. Seeing there were many prescriptions which needed to be signed by the doctors, she took them and made her way to the doctors´ office. She knocked and entered. Her face didn´t show her disgust as she saw that Dr. Mal was the only one in the room.

"Dr. Mal, I need you to sign this for us." She quickly stated as she stood next to the door, ready to leave as soon as possible. He didn´t stand up to get the papers, but made her a sign to come up to his desk. She practically threw the prescriptions on the desk. He took all his time to sign them, making Marinette boil in rage. _Sure… take your time, it´s not like I have millions of things to do._ He accidently dropped a paper the moment he wanted to put them all together. Marinette started bending down to catch it, but he beat her to it. While sitting up, he traced her calf with his fingers. Marinette quickly moved her leg, muttered a thanks and left rapidly.

* * *

She went directly to the hospital´s pharmacy. Today Mylène was at the reception.

"Hey Mari! Long-time no see!"

"Mylène, nice to see you again! How was your honey-moon?"

"Great, but I didn´t want to leave. It was so warm there!" Marinette sighed, she wanted to go on vacation too. "Hey? Did something happen on the sixth floor? You seem tired, even if your shift just started…"

"Well yeah… Dr. Mal is back…" Elbows on counter, she rested her head in her palms. She handed her the prescriptions, which Mylène gave to another pharmacist.

"Oh, I´m sorry. Hopefully his vacation brought some common sense to him." Marinette sighed deeply; she just wanted him to stop his inappropriate manners. She didn´t want to acknowledge his touches, but he didn´t seem to get she didn´t approve of it. Marinette waited, while the pharmacy prepared everything they needed for the sixth floor. She was handed a big box, which was as heavy as it looked like. She dragged the box to the elevator. She entered and was followed by and Dr. Mal.

"Good morning Marinette!" said the blond, while smiling at her.

"Hi." She responded with a more pained smile, it felt like the box was tearing her biceps. Seeing her pained expression, Adrien took the box from her hands without even asking, earning a glare from Dr. Mal. She was about to protest, but his gentle smile, made her speechless. She managed to utter a thanks. Adrien and Dr. Mal kept talking, while Marinette observed closely how the muscles in Adriens´ arms flexed as he readjusted the box a couple of times. _Thank God, he isn´t wearing his white coat right now!_ She dreamed about those arms around her and blushed bright red. On one hand, she was thankful for the amazing view on Adriens´ arms, on the other hand she was thankful that Dr. Mal couldn´t do anything to her, Adrien having saved her without his knowing. Once the elevator chimed for their floor, Marinette made a movement to have the box back, only for Adrien to turn the box away.

"No, I´m carrying this. Where should I drop it?" Marinette blushed again at his ´gentlemenness´.

"Oh- thanks. Could you take it to the medication room?" He nodded and both left Dr. Mal, who didn´t seem to appreciate being left and headed to the medication room. The room was a bit messy with medication and IV fluids everywhere.

"Just leave it there. Thank you very much… you didn´t have to do that." He looked at her wide-eyed.

"What kind of person would I be, if I didn´t? Don´t worry about it, I´m always happy to help." She blushed and a smile tucked at the corners of both of their lips.

After he left, Marinette unpacked everything in the box and prepared the medications for all of the patients. She mixed the IV fluids with the correct medication tagged the bottles with the names of the patient, to finally put them on a tray, ready to be used. It took her quite some time, she was alone and the wing had many patients. Even if it was repetitive, Marinette liked her job. A nurse came in, asking her if she needed any help. She refused, having nearly finished. She put out the tray in a corner of the room, leaving the distribution to the next shift, which started soon. The next shift came and the nurses discussed with them about the patients making sure to explain the changes of medication and every patients´ status, so no mistake would be done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a quite long chapter! You´re not used to that XD Sorry about that btw...
> 
> Well I hope you liked that little cake scene! :D And Adriens´ muscles of course ;D ! Who wouldn´t like a hug from him?
> 
>  
> 
> Eat chocolate!


	20. Chapter 20

When Marinette arrived home, she found a note from Alya telling she went out and told her not to wait for her. Mari cooked herself a small meal, having no power left to make something special and complicated. Taking her filled plate to her room, she sprawled out on her bed and ate, while browsing through the internet. Nothing interested her much and she felt too tired to start a movie, so she closed her laptop and turned off the lights, trying to find sleep. She changed her position multiple times, but sleep wouldn´t come. She tried not to think of anything, once she started a thought, it wouldn´t end. She thought about , who seemed not intended to stop. She tried thinking of an effective way to make him, only to conclude that avoiding might him might be the best solution. The scene in the elevator popped up into her mind and she reminded his angered expression as Adrien talked to her. Maybe if she stayed near Adrien, he would leave her alone? Marinette fell asleep soon after, the exhaustion finally slowing her heart beat and body temperature, permitting her to have a good night sleep. She didn´t even stir in her sleep as Alya came back late and accidently knocked a shoe box over as it landed heavily on the floor. Alya quickly went to bed, having to work early tomorrow as well.

* * *

Marinette and Alya exited their bedroom at the same time the next morning.

"Morning." They both greeted sleepily. Both yawned at least ten times as they ate breakfast. Alya had opted for a pure black coffee. They didn´t speak much, only once they were changing into their fresh pair of scrubs in the lockers´ room.

"So…? Are you going to tell me where you were tonight?" Alya pupils´ widened, but Marinette couldn´t she had her back turned to her, so Mari only saw her froze.

"Emm, I was… at my parents´! Yes, I was visiting my parents!" She turned around and gave her friend an innocent smile. Marinette cocked her hip and smirked.

"You had a date, didn´t you?" Alya froze once again, but quickly gained her composure.

"What? Mari! No, like I told you I visited my parents!" Marinette shook her head in a mocking manner.

"Nanana, you weren´t. If you had been at your parents´ house, you would have said so in your note. So, who´s the lucky guy?" Alya stomped her foot, upset by having been caught lying to her face. She should have known better. She mumbled an answer, making Mari lean in.

"Come on tell me." Alya scowled inaudibly.

"I´ll tell you later. We´re late." Marinette accepted after checking her watch. They made their way to the sixth floor. The elevator chimed and they went to the nurses´ station. They greeted the night shift who was still here waiting for them and the other nurses of their shift. After going over every single patient, Marinette and Alya cut in half the list of the patients, leaving each half of the patients in the wing they were covering. Marinette visited each patient, changing the bed sheets if necessary and measured pulse, temperature and blood pressure on every one. Slowly the hospital and its patients were waking up.

Suddenly Alya came into a patient´s room, Marinette was already in. It was the last patient she had to take care of.

"Mari, I have more work than I thought with my patients, can you assist to the doctors´ round? I still have so many patients to take care of!" Alya begged.

"Sure, no problem. I just finished my own round." Alya practically ran out of the room back to her patients. Marinette picked up all her supplies and deposited them on her mobile computer (Computer on a high desk, that you can take with you everywhere). She made sure to take the patients´ information with her, it was and is highly confidential. After disinfecting her hands for the hundredth time this morning, she caught the sight of the doctors making their way over to their wing. They were five today with two interns. She greeted them, they greeted her back, as they made their way to the first room. A greeting made her heart beat faster than any other.

"Good Morning Marinette."

"Oh, good Morning Adrien – I mean Dr. Agreste." She corrected herself rapidly as some of the doctors gave her a weird look. Adrien seem to notice it, but didn´t say anything. The professor as well as Chief of their floor greeted the first patient.

"Good Morning Mr. Handt. So, ready for your surgery today?"

"Well, Pr. Kelt. You tell me, you are the one operating." The majority of the doctors including the professor laughed. Marinette smiled and shook her head; Mr. Handt was always trying to make everyone laugh. She didn´t know if he was doing it outside the hospital as well, before he was diagnosed with a disease that could possibly kill him, or if the disease made him want to cheer up everyone including himself.

"Nurse Dupain-Cheng, may I know his blood pressure and so on from this morning."

"Yes. Blood pressure 125/70 Pulse 74 and temperature 36,7°C. So signs of pain or pressure in the abdomen." She read from her paper as the professor applied himself pressure with his fingers on the patient´s belly.

"Good. We will see you later Mr."

It was a Tuesday, so many surgeries would happen that day. After seeing a couple of other patients, mostly post-operation patients, they entered Mr. Delayn´s room.

"Mr. Delayn, good morning. Big surgery today." Mr. Delayn didn´t look as confident as he did when Marinette came this morning. An hour ago, he was the cheerful person she had gotten to know during the couple of weeks he had stayed at the hospital. While he was joking around before, it seemed like he wasn´t at ease with the doctors here. Marinette was concerned and it was showcased perfectly on her face.

"Mr. Delayn, are you alright?" She started as Mr. Delayn seemed not to answer. Ignoring the doctors next to her, she took his hand, squeezing it slightly and observed him. Nobody else spoke up, letting Mr. Delayn the time he needed. He looked up to her and she could see that his trustful side had disappeared.

"Will you be there?" Marinettes´ eyes widened in surprise, she didn´t see this request coming. The professor´s assistant spoke up.

"Mr. Delayn, Nurse Dupain-Cheng is working here and not as a scrub nurse." Adrien took in the dejected look on ´s face and Marinette´s worried face. He wondered why the professor hadn´t said anything yet.

"I need Nurse Marinette there…" He looked down again. The professor finally spoke up.

"Can I ask why this is so important to you?"

"Nurse Marinette made my stay bearable. She is the only support I had constantly here… can´t she assist?" The doctors exchanged a few looks, clearly unsure on how to proceed. He definitely needed the surgery. The doctors went outside to talk and when they came back they looked at Marinette, who didn´t know what to answer.

"We can´ t let Nurse Dupain-Cheng come with you, or there will be not enough nurses on the floor." Marinette looked at Adrien, who didn´t seem to agree on this decision to go against the patient´s request. dropped his head again. Marinette knew it wasn´t good when a patient went into surgery with such a mood, but she had no possibility to fulfil his request, even if for her it wouldn´t have been a problem to stay by his side. She held his hand tighter, feeling him shaking slightly. Adrien started fidgeting behind her, but she didn´t pay attention.

"I could replace Marinette during the surgery, Dr. Mal being back, he took most of his patients back, and I am already ahead with mine, so I wouldn´t mind taking her place for a few hours.", proposed Adrien suddenly, making Marinette gasp in surprise and shocking every single person in the room. The professor looked at him thoughtfully. Marinette looked up at Adrien, seeing he meant every word he said, she blushed profusely.

_He has the most kind soul and heart I have ever seen and will ever see… He´s just perfect!_

"Are you sure you wouldn´t prefer to assist the surgery Dr. Agreste?", asked the professor. Adrien shook his head.

"Yes, she can assist the surgery, while I stay here. It is not a problem." The professor simply nodded, acknowledging his response.

"Alright, it seems a solution was found. Mr. Delayn we will see you this afternoon."

* * *

Once the doctors´ round was finished, Marinette put all the new information into their computer making sure to add the patient´s blood pressure, temperature and pulse as well as the change of medication and IV fluids. She wanted to go see Adrien and thank him for his idea and volunteering. But she wanted to make most of her work, so he wouldn´t have to do much. She and Alya prepared today´s medication and mixed the fluids with the correct prescription, tagging them correctly. In the early afternoon, she brought Mr. Delayn herself to the anaesthesia. She had to leave him for a few minutes in order to scrub in and to disinfect her hands and arms correctly to assist the surgery. She entered the O.R., which walls where all painted in a light blue. The neon light blinded her temporarily. She went up to Mr. Delayn, who was lying down, ready to be sedated.

"I´ll be next to you the entire time. But don´t worry if you don´t see me when you wake up." Mr. Delayn nodded and the anaesthesiologist put the mask on his face making him count to ten. He didn´t even get to 9- already falling asleep.

* * *

The surgery went smoothly, no complications or difficulties. Once Mr. Delayn was brought to the recovery room around 3 p.m., Mari made her way up to the 6th floor. She looked everywhere for Alya or Adrien, but they weren´t in any of patients´ room. She finally found them talking around a cup of coffee in the nurses' office. She gave Alya a suspicious look. Adrien turned around hearing her enter.

"How did it go?" he asked curiously.

"No complications." she simply answered while giving a small smile. Adrien and Alya nodded. Marinette grabbed a mug and poured herself a cup of coffee as she sat down next to them.

"Did you have much to do?" finally asked Marinette to the both, who had to cover her area. Even if she didn´t how it went, she didn´t want him to have much to do. He had been selfless as he propositioned himself to take her place. Adrien and Alya both shrugged as they shared the same look.

"Not much, just hanging the IVs and taking them of." Said Alya truthfully to which he nodded. "You had already done nearly everything, leaving us to hang out here, talking and waiting." She had a mischievous glint in her eyes, which scared Marinette. _Oh god… what did she do?_ "Doctor here even got his patients´ charts since he had time to do his real job as well."

"Yeah, we had some time to kill so…" He scratched the back of his head. He looked over at Marinette, who quickly turned a lovely shade of pink, contrasting her freckles. Alya left after that, leaving the two of them alone in the nurses´station. Adrien was fumbling with his pen, he had stopped writing in a patient´s chart, while Marinette didn´t know how to break the silence. She had both hands in her mug, not knowing with what else she could occupy her hands. She took a deep breath.

"I- thank you." Adrien´s head shot up to look at her. She was still staring at her mug. "Thank you for doing this today." She looked up and met his strong gaze. The silence that followed wasn´t at all awkward, it was intense, like an emotion burning but they had no idea which one of was. He simply started nodding after a couple of minutes, a small smile grazing his lips.

The nurses of the next shift entered and Adrien left them so they could go over every patient. They all ended their shift without any problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2,113 words! The biggest chapter I have ever posted!
> 
> So? What are your thoughts?
> 
> Thank you for your amazing reviews, feel free to leave more! :)
> 
> Eat chocolate!


	21. Chapter 21

Once they got home and the door was closed behind them, Marinette cornered Alya.

"What did you say to him?" she put on her serious face. Alya threw her purse in the corner of their living room and herself on the couch.

""Well, you know… stuff."

"Don´t ´stuff´ me! I saw the way you looked at me! Tell me now!" Alya remained silent, so Marinette went on. "Did you say something horribly embarrassing about me? How I drool when I sleep? NO! You wouldn´t dare!" She held a menacing finger towards Alya, her anger slowly rising with Alya´s silence. Alya chuckled like a little demon.

"What do you want me to tell you? That you didn´t even come up during the whole conversation? Because that would be a total lie." Marinette emitted a whine and buried her face in the nearest pillow. Alya patted her head. "Hey, I´m trying to make him interested in you, because you don´t seem to do it by yourself. You will never go out with him if you go on like this, or it will take you 200 years, and that´s the same!" Marinette´s long and profound groan was muffled by her pillow. "Mari, lighten up! It´s not the worst thing that ever happened to you!" Marinette turned her head, so she could get some air and looked at Alya.

"Yes!" whined Mari., making Alya face-palm. After a minute or two, Mari stopped. "So? What did you talk about?", a pleading look in her eyes.

"Well, we talked about how we first met and how he met his BFF…"

"HE HAS A BFF TOO?" interrupted Marinette. _Just like me…_ she sighed dreamily, but Alya quickly snapped her fingers as she saw she was starting to daydream again.

"Mari! And for the record you´re not the only subject we talk about." Alya crossed her arms. Suddenly Marinette remembered the conversation they hadn´t finished this morning. Curiosity sparked in her eyes as she looked at Alya again, making her cock her head not understanding her sudden change of expression.

"Are you finally going to tell me where you were last night?" Alyas´ eyes widened in panic, but she rapidly tried to hide her secret from her best-friend, which led to her face morphing into a weird expression. Marinette smiled smugly, she had successfully turned the situation upside down.

"I-I… I don´t have to tell you!" She crossed her arms, while Marinette´s jaw dropped. Marinette started to laugh in astonishment.

"What? I always have to tell you everything and you won´t tell me where you were last night? Well… you don´t have a choice Madame!" Marinette jumped on her friend, who was sitting on the sofa. Alya couldn´t escape as Mari started tickling her without mercy.

"St- Ahhh- Stop! Hahaha! Please – Mari- Stop!" Mari went on for another minute before stopping.

"Will you tell me now?" Alya panted heavily.

"Y-yes girl. Let me breath first though." Alya readjusted herself on the couch while Marinette sat next to her, impatiently waiting for her to start.

"Well… it started at the hospital, there was a man sitting on our front desk, so you know me… I kind of played the angry nurse (Mari chuckled). So he introduced himself and he… gave me his number!" She said lastly with a high-pitched voice. Marinette clapped her hands excitedly.

"So we meet up for coffee a few times…"

"YOU DIDN´T TELL ME?!" Marinette interrupted loudly.

"Well, I didn´t know if it would last…but I want too." Alya answered dreamily, to which Marinette smiled fondly. "So yes, he asked me out yesterday and I had a great time." She chuckled, probably remembering the past evening." Marinette hugged her best-friend tightly; she really hoped this would work out for her friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eat chocolate !


	22. Chapter 22

For once Marinette arrived early for her night shift from Saturday evening to Sunday morning. She hadn´t looked at who she would be working with, so she made her way to the shift plan, scanning the list rapidly. Since many patients had been released, a few staff members were given the night out. There was another nurse, so they would probably cover each one a wing. Much to her dismay, Dr. Mal was on call tonight. She just prayed he wouldn´t do anything and that the patients would keep her way from him all night. At least if she had nothing to do she offer some help to the other wing. His harassing and sexual assault had gotten worse the more shifts they had shared. He didn´t even react as she openly told him to stop, he only acted as if nothing had happened. A few days ago he had squeezed her buttocks, when nobody had been watching at the front desk. She was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable. AT first she had brushed it off, but now it was affecting her more and more and she still didn´t tell anybody.

She made her first round at 11 pm, giving out a few antibiotics and fluids as well as some sleeping pills the patient had requested. Many patients had trouble falling asleep here. They weren´t home and Mari knew she would have also trouble sleeping in here. Even if they had nothing to worry about, it was a hospital. You never knew what was going to happen. A hospital is always noisy as well, making it harder to fall asleep. The night started calmly, something you would normally not complain about, but since you had nothing to do, you couldn´t distract yourself from the fact that you couldn´t sleep. She yawned and stretched and made her way to the other wing, to ask if the nurse needed any help. Just as they stated talking did one her own patient's call, so she made her way back to the floor. She took care of everything in a couple of minutes.

She made her way to the front desk. She bit back a groan as she saw Dr. Mal approach and sit down there as well. Even if she was doing her paperwork, she could feel his stare at her, his gaze drifting over her entire body and halting on particular places. She was absolutely disgusted. She gave her best to ignore him, but under his insistence it was more difficult to do so. She shifted in her seat uneasy and finished everything up quickly and printed everything for the next day. She found her next occupation for away from the front desk where her superior sat. Thanking the hospital for having bought a fast printer, she grabbed the papers and tried to act as if she wasn´t hurrying away to the medication room. She prepared the IV for the next morning and lunch. Knowing they would have more work tomorrow with the new patients coming in, she already prepared the oral medication. Even if she hated doing it, she would accept every task to stay away from Dr. Mal.

When she came back two hours later, he wasn´t there anymore, only the other nurse who had finished her own work. She sat down next to her and they started chatting and drinking coffee: the only thing that could keep them awake. The night passed and she didn´t see Dr. Mal anymore, which she was thankful for. She hoped that her next night shifts wouldn´t be with him as on call doctor. With her luck, the nurses she had to update came late, so she left last.

When she arrived at the women's´ locker rooms it was empty. The morning shift had started; the night shift had already ended. The whole "locker floor" was dead silent; you could only hear a light buzzing coming through the thick walls. Tired, she dragged her feet to the locker room, feeling like she could fall asleep standing. She kicked her shoes off as she arrived in front of her locker. Pulling her hospital staff card out, she swiped it over her locker, unlocking it. She took out her normal clothes and put them on the nearest bench and took off her scrubs letting them fall unto the floor next to her. She rubbed her eyes and yawned for what seemed to be the thousands time since this morning. She stretched he sore back making her vertebrae and scapulae pop. She turned around to grab her trousers when she saw male shoes a few meters away in her field of vision. Her head shot up to see Dr. Mal leaning against the lockers blatantly starring at her.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: ! CONTAINS SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND ABUSE! DO NOT READ IF AFFECTED BY SUCH THEMES!
> 
> Enjoy for those you read!
> 
> If the next chapters contain such themes, I´ll will warn you at the beginning!

Previously:

~ She turned around to grab her trousers when she saw male shoes a few meters away in her field of vision. Her head shot up to see Dr. Mal leaning against the lockers blatantly starring at her. ~

How did I not hear someone coming in?

She grabbed her clothes and tried to cover her half-naked body from him.

"W-what are you doing here? It´s the women´s locker room, get the hell out!" She yelled her voice full of anger.

He didn't answer and only starred at her. After a silent minute, he stood straighter and walked over to her. She backed away only for her bare back to collide with the ice cold lockers, making her shiver. She readjusted the clothes she had to cover herself, even if they still didn´t cover enough for her liking. He stopped right in front of her. Marinette couldn´t back away more, even if it was the only thing she wanted, but she was cornered between the lockers and him. She tried to speak up again, only for him to put a finger to her lips, silencing her. He closed the distance between them; she tried to push him away but to no avail. He grabbed her wrists, locking them above her head, twisting them and making her loose her grip on her clothes. Her body now fully exposed to him, he scanned her body. She tried to pull away, but he seemed to have no problem to block out all her attempts. Her voice seemed to have left her. She whimpered as felt one of his hands feel up her entire body. She pushed him with all of her force, only to be slammed back into the lockers, making her gasp as all of the air was knocked out of her. She whimpered as she felt the locker cutting into her skin. Tears gathered up in her eyes and she tried to pull away and wiggle out of his grip. She was starting to panic as his hands started roaming her body, not stopping as she begged. Her tears started to pearl down her cheeks and her throat dry out as she felt his mouth at her neck.

"As your boss, I´m ordering for you to stop this right now. You know you want it, you´ve been teasing me the whole time we´ve been working together."

She cried out as he bit into her neck. She slammed her foot in the lockers hoping someone would hear the sound. She managed to slam her foot a few times before he blocked her leg with his. He shot her a menacing look, before diving back to trail his mouth to the valley of her breasts. Her breathing quickened and whimpered as he bit the soft flesh under her collarbone. She forced herself to scream for help even if her voice was drained from all power. The night shift had drained her, leaving her without any power.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the lockers, exhaustion overtaking her. She didn´t want to give up, but he clearly had the upper hand. She continued to sob quietly, while he attacked her body with his mouth and hands. Suddenly she felt someone push him away from her and she dropped to the floor. She starred at the floor her vision blurred from the tears. She heard someone being pushed forcefully against the lockers and a cracking sound, as if a bone had been broken. She continued to sob, trying to protect her body from view and the cold. She didn´t hear the cursing and grunts of pain that reverberated in the room, nor the menacing or yelling. She didn´t hear as someone dropped down beside her and covered her with something. Someone grabbed put his hands on her cheeks delicately and tilted her head up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eat chocolate!


	24. Chapter 24

Previously:

~ She didn´t hear the cursing and grunts of pain that reverberated in the room, nor the menacing or yelling. She didn´t hear as someone dropped down beside her and covered her with something. Someone grabbed put his hands on her cheeks delicately and tilted her head up. ~

She was surprised to recognize Adrien´s worried expression, his beautiful green eyes scanning her face trough the tears blurring her vision. He ran his thumbs along her cheekbones trying to calm her down and to stop the running tears. Her sobs increased and she dropped her head and leaned into him. He cradled her closer to him, letting her rest her head on his shoulder. He ran his hand comfortingly over her now covered back by his white coat.

She didn´t know how long that sat on the floor, with her crying on his shoulder. The warmth he was spreading, soothed her a little and she wiggled closer to him. She flinched as his hand passed over a sore spot on her back, making his hand stop. He moved a little and looked at her, silently asking if it was okay to look at the spot. She nodded weakly, the tears still spilling out of her eyes. He lifted the edge of the white coat to take a look at her bare back. She had a long gash on her back, not particularly deep, but there nonetheless. She flinched again as he ran his fingers near the wound. A bruise was already forming on her lower back and where her shoudlersblades had hit the lockers hard.

"I´ll have to clean it." He simply stated, covering her again with the coat. She nodded against his shoulder not meeting his gaze.

After some time, Marinette managed to stand up with his help. They slowly made their way to an empty room, where they could stay away from any prying eyes. Adrien helped Mari up on the table. Her sobbing had stopped, but the tears still hadn´t. She didn´t know if they would stop. Adrien got everything out he needed to treat her wound. She lifted her shirt as he set everything down next to her. He silently cleaned it and put some bandages on. After finishing he sat down facing her and took her hands in his, hoping it would provide her some comfort; they were ice-cold. He squeezed her hands and she closed her eyes trying to calm down and erase the bad memories. She was sure she would never see such a kind soul as his again. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

"Thank you…" she murmured with a barely audible voice. He squeezed her hands again.

"You don´t have to thank me for this." He answered. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked unsure if she wanted to open up to him. She shrugged having no idea what to do, her tears starting to fall down faster again. Adrien sat down next to her and rubbed her arm in a soothing manner. A long silence followed, only interrupted by Marinette´s quiet sobs that sometimes would come out. Even if she wanted to keep it all inside, she knew she couldn´t anymore.

"Has this been going on for long?" he asked quietly. She nodded after a few seconds and felt him tense up.

"Was it always like this?" Not wanting him to worry, she rapidly shook her head.

"Do you want to tell me what else he did?" She buried her head in his shoulder and let out a chocked sob. Adrien let her take her time to calm down and let it all out, before she answered. He wouldn´t push if she decided not to answer as well. It had been a traumatising experience, maybe she didn´t even want to talk about it with him.

"H-h-he w-was alwa-ays st-star-ring at m-me a-and –touch-ching m-me…" She chocked again all of her emotions resurfacing. She tried to bury her head deeper into his muscled shoulder.

"You know you can fill in a report?" Adrien said after she had calmed down a bit. She nodded weakly against his shoulder. She didn´t know if she wanted to do that, she thought it would only make things worse; maybe she would even lose her job because of him. Would they believe more in a doctor or a nurse? As if Adrien had been reading her thoughts, he went on:

"Don´t think it won´t help you Marinette." She shook her head, but hearing her name made her calmer.

"Mari, you know I´ll stand by your side and testify as well with you, right?" She nodded again waving her arms around his waist so she could grab onto something. She held him in a tight grip and he didn´t mind, tightening his embrace as well. He felt her relax a bit. Tilting her head up by holding her chin he looked at her.

"Mari, you´re strong. We can get through this. Don´t be scared to stand up for yourself." She weakly nodded as the sobs started again. Adrien wrapped his arms around her and let her rest her head in the crook of his neck, while he rested his head on top of hers.

They sat in silence for some time, until Adrien asked if she wanted to go home. She accepted and after taking their belongings, they made their way to Adrien´s car. Mari slumped into her car seat, completely exhausted. Somehow he already knew the address, probably from Nino, and they found a parking place near the building. Adrien didn´t leave her side as they made their way up to her apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eat chocolate!


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Previously:  
> Dr Mal abused Marinette in the women´s locker room. Adrien saved her and now takes care of his broken coworker and friend.

Thankfully Adrien had asked Marinette for her address before she fell asleep. They found a parking place near the building. He slowly shook her out of her sleeping state, knowing she would be much better in her own, safe home, sleeping in a real bed than in a leather car seat. She woke up with a start, a whimper excaping her lips. She looked around rapidly as if she was scared someone was attacking her. The moment she saw him she visibly relaxed.

Adrien didn´t leave her side as they made their way up to her apartment. After opening the door and letting him in, she threw herself on the couch, while Adrien went to the kitchen. He came back a few minutes later with a steaming cup of tea. She accepted it with a small exhausted smile and he sat down at the level of her knees. She had forced this smile out, he was being so nice tho help her and to save her in the first place, wthout him she didn´t even knew in which state she would be now. She shuddered at the idea of Dr. Mal doing worse thing to her, which earned her a concerned look from Adrien. He rubbed her back, while she clutched her hot cup of tea. She was still shaking a bit, even if she was safe now and far away from the hospital, and with someone she knew wouldn´t hurt a fly.

After finishing the cup, she leaned back into the pillows on the couch, closing her exhausted eyes. Adrien slightly shook her before she fell asleep, telling her she would be more comfortable in her own bed. Mari shook her head, feeling too exhausted to move, needless to say she was surprised when he picked her up and took her to her room.

After placing her on the bed, he threw her sheets over her. He wished her good night and stood up to leave. Already half-asleep, Marinette took his hand.

"C-can you stay p-please?" He nodded and made his way to the other side of the bed sitting comfortably his back against the headboard. She took his hand and he rubbed soothing circles into her palm. She fell asleep as she concentrated only on his hand and his steady breathing.

* * *

Adrien stayed even after she fell asleep. It had been a pure coincidence that this particular morning his alarm hadn´t ringed, resulting in him arriving late to work. It had never happened to him before, in 26 years. As he arrived he found it bizarre that the door to the women´s locker room was open, the door was always closed, like the dorr of the men´s locker room was. He hadn´t paid it further attention, going into the men´s locker room to change imto a fresh pair of scrubs. As he passed by again did he hear a distinct sound, like a foot slamming against the lockers to attract attention. A t first he had thought he had been imagining it, but then the sound repeated a few times. The faint cry for help focused his attention solely on what was going on in he locker room´s and not him being late anymore.

The scene before his own eyes shocked him profoundly. Before his brain had actually made a decision, his body had already started acting. Pushing him away from her and throwing his fist against his nose. He couldn´t bare the way Marinette looked. She looked drained and empty, like he had taken something away from her. He didn´t feel sorry at all for breaking his co-worker´s nose. Her face was covered in tears, eyes red from crying. He had slammed him multiple times against the metallic lockers, leaving a dent on a few lockers. He had managed to punch his chest a few times, but Adrien had barely registered it. Now he would admit his chest felt a little sore for the couple of hits he took. After he had knead Dr-Mal in the family jewels did he stop from punshing Adrien. Adrien had never been more grateful for going to gym often.

She was now sleeping peacefully clutching his hand like it was a lifeline. His right hand was a little sore and hurt a bit as he flexed it, it was already bruising around his knucles, leaving a blue and purple trace, but he didn´t regret any of the punches he had thrown at Dr. Mal. A single thought about this man made his anger rise, and he just wanted to punch him again.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, clearing his angered mind. He took it out, only to see his superior calling. He had forgotten to call he wouldn´t come in today. He didn´t know what was worse: answering or not.

"Hello?" He said the most quietly possible hoping it wouldn´t wake her up. He couldn´t go anywhere, since she was clutching his hand like a lifeline, even in her sleep.

"Dr. Agreste? Where are you? We´ve been looking for you in the whole hospital!" the Chief exclaimed. Adrien looked down at Marinette who hadn´t flinched.

"Em, yes. I´m not coming in today Pr. Kelt."

"Are you sick?"

"Nono, I´m not. I just-... I don´t know if it´s my place to tell sir." He answered truthfully. He couldn´t be the one telling him what Dr. Mal did, but on the other hand it appeared like he didn´t have any excuse not to go to work.

"Did something happen? ... Well make sure to take care of it."

"Yes, Pr. Kelt. I´ll come back as soon as I can." They ended the call and Adrien sighed in relief that he didn´t push the conversation further. He had truly no idea what he could tell him or not.

Soon, his eyes started to close, the events having him worn out as well. Without even registering it, he fell asleep.

* * *

He still woke up before her. His back hurt from being in an uncomfortabke position against the hard headboard. He looked at his phone only to see it was nearly 7 pm.

He looked down at his hand only to see that Mari was now clutching at his entire arm and had scooted closer to him. A small smile grazed his lips as he pushed a few strands of dark hair out of her face. Even if he barely touched her cheeks in the process, she stirred and slowly opened her eyes. Her room was dark only illuminated by the street lamps. She excused herself as she saw she had been clutching at his arm and let him go. She wondered why he was still there, she thought he would have left by now.

"I´m sorry, I fell asleep." She smiled and shook her head.

"Don´t worry. I won´t hold it against you." He chuckled. "Well I should probably go." She grabbed his wrist stopping him before he could go anywhere.

"You can stay for dinner if you want… that´s the least I can do…" She said as she looked out of the window.

"If you want to, I don´t want to impose myself." She let his wrist go and scratched her arm.

"Well then I hope you have nothing against home-made quiche." He perked up and accepted her kind offer. They made their way to the kitchen and Mari heated the quiche up and set the table, not allowing Adrien to do anything. She made him sit down and placed the quiche on the table between them. She served him a big portion. He hummed as he took his first bite, clearly not regretting staying a little longer. Marinette appeared to be lost in thoughts. Adrien shot her a worried look.

"No, I was just thinking…" He looked at her, wanting to know what was troubling her. "I mean… I know you want me to fill in a report, but…" She bit her lip worriedly. "I-I don´t know if I can do this…" She said honestly, her voice quivering on the end, like her force was leaving her again.

"I can come with you, I won´t leave you on your own." She looked at him and tried to find something in his eyes that would make her think otherwise, but she could only see worry and honesty grazing his expression. She sighed and thanked him.

"Do you want me to call the hospital and tell them you won´t come the next few days?" She shook her head.

"No… thank you, but I think I´ll go tomorrow and get this done with… I´ll see what they´ll tell me."

"Alright. Do you want me to pick you up tomorrow so we both can go?" She looked at him hesitantly and nodded as she saw his genuine want to help her.

They finished eating in silence and before Adrien could open the door, she hugged him tightly. Surprised it took him some time to hug back. He let her take her time. The hug made him feel better as well. He felt responsible for not coming in sooner as he saw the open door, he could have stopped it sooner. After letting him go, he left. Still feeling exhausted, Marinette went straight to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eat chocolate!


	26. Chapter 26

She woke up the next morning a few hours before her usual alarm woke her up, drenched in cold sweat. She couldn´t remember the nightmare she had and actually didn´t want to. Her bed sheets were crumpled at the foot of her bed, she must have been restless in her sleep.

Knowing she wouldn´t fall back asleep, she decided to take a burning hot shower hoping it would relax her tense muscles and sore body. She must have been crying in her sleep, her eyes were blood-shot and she had dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks were slightly sticky from the salty susbtance. She knew make-up couldn´t help her and she wasn´t up to it to smear her face with it. She didn´t care what she looked like for once.

She scrubbed her skin as hard as she could, leaving a few red marks. She could already see a few bruises and scratches on her ribs and wrists that her attacker left on her. She hysterically tried to scrub them off, as hot tears made their way along her cheeks again. She willed herself to calm down once the bar of soap had sprung out of her hands and she realised she was having trouble breathing correctly. Marinette steadied herself on the shower´s wall, forcing herself to calm down and breathe. Once she was calmer and registered that she had used all the warm water of the whole building did she got out of the shower.

The hot steam of her shower had gotten to her mirror. Taking her towel, she swiped it only to see the hickeys he had left, marking her. It was a physical reminder like her wound, the bruises, and scratches, that he had forced himself on her. She quickly looked away not wanting to be reminded of that painful memory. She had forgotten to ask Adrien when he would pick her up, so she decided to get already get ready in case he was coming early. Just as she finished brushing the knots out of her hair, did she hear a light knock at the door. She opened him the door, offering him coffee. Even if he saw how exhausted she looked, he didn´t say anything.

He drove them the hospital in a comforting silence. The slow rumble of the motor nearly lulled her to sleep. Marinette was grateful that he was also coming, since she was sure she wouldn´t be able to go on her own. She was so relieved that he hadn´t forgotten her and helped her trough this. Even if he wasn´t saying anything, she didn´t need him to say anything actually, his presence was calming her already, as if it was a constant reminder that everything would be okay. She felt guilty as she saw his bruised knuckles.

* * *

Adrien had already asked the Chief to clear an hour of their schedule. They didn´t bother to change into their scrubs like normally, they directly went up to the sixth floor. Marinette walked behind Adrien, scared Dr. Mal would be wandering the halls and see her. He halted in front of the Professor´s personal office and she tensed as she heard him calling them in. Adrien walked in first with Mari right behind him, hiding behind him. She saw the professor´s surprised look as he recognized her. He still had no clue about what was going on. He mentioned to them to sit down. Mari shifted nervously in her seat, not knowing if she should start even if she knew she couldn´t, she had no power to do so, after her restless night. The professor only looked at them both one afetr the other as if trying to comprehend why theor were both here. He could only see that both looked exhausted. Marinette looked like she hadn´t slept in days. AFter a couple of minutes he spoke up, which made Mari slightly flinch since she thought he would stay silent. She let out a relieved sigh.

"So what brings you here this morning?" Mari shot Adrien a nervous look and he took her hand under the desk to help her calm down. Seeing her distressed look, he decided to start.

"Pr. Kelt, we would like to fill in a report." The professor looked at him confused.

"A report for what?"

"Abuse, sir." The professor looked at them like they had grown two heads. The professor´s frown deepened.

"What are you talking about Dr. Agreste? I know everything that happens on this floor; I never heard anything of the sort!" He exclaimed. Mari let her head down, not wanting for him to see the tears welling up.

"I am only a witness Professor" The professor diverted his attention to Marinette, whose shoulders tensed as she felt her gaze on her.

"Miss Dupain-Cheng? Would you maybe like to say something?" He asked. She looked up, she eyes red and the tears started to stream down her face. She felt Adrien traces circles in her palm. She cleared her throat; she knew she had to speak up now. Even if the professor looked at her expectantly, he wasn´t pushing her. She had buried all the emotions and stress related to Dr Mal´s abuse over the couple of years they had worked together on the same floor. It all came back in one day, crashing drown on her small shoulders and she was having a hard time dealing with those feelings. She squeezed the hell out of Adrien´s hand for support.

"I w-wanted to f-fill a rep-port against Dr.- em Dr. Ma-Mal." She finally said with her eyes still closed. The professor's eyes widen. He looked between her and Adrien trying to figure out if it was a joke or not. Seeing how serious Adrien looked and hurt Marinette looked by his expression, he leaned in the back of his seat and continued.

"It is in the protocol that I have to ask you exactly what he did or you to file a complaint."

She nodded weakly and a chocked sob came out of her as she remembered the events. She clutched Adrien´s hand who attempted to speak up for her, but the professor didn´t let him start, telling him he had to hear it from her. She related everything that had happened since she had been working with him, she was only interrupted by her own sobs. The professor seemed to be taking her seriously.

"Any physical proof?" He asked quietly after he took in everything she had said. She nodded and showed him the wound Adrien had treated. Turning around she showed the hickeys he had left on her upper chest, neck and collarbones. He nodded scribbling down a few more notes. Adrien testified as well, avoiding to say that he punched the hell out of Dr Mal.

"Thank you for coming to me. The next step of the protocol is to speak to Dr. Mal. We´ll see how it goes from there. Miss Dupain-Cheng, I´m sure you could use a few days off. I´ll make sure you schedule will be changed so you won´t have any shift with Dr. Mal until the whole thing has settled. Mari nodded and left the office. Adrien came out a few minutes later.

* * *

Nobody broke the weighing silence as they made their way out of the hospital towards her apartment. Marinette looked like shit, and she felt this way as well. She was thankful that Alya had taken a few days off to spend with Nino, while he had nothing to do. She wanted to be alone… or with Adrien. He was able to calm her down like nobody else, not even her mother. She had absolutely no idea how he did it. Once she entered her bedroom, she slumped on her pillow. Adrien came back in a few minutes later with a cup of tea and her favourite chocolate bar. She managed to let out a small thanks and smile as she gladly accepted what he offered her. She hadn´t eaten this morning and couldn´t eat much more.

She rested her head on the pillow. She didn´t want to close her eyes even if her body begged her to rest. Each time she would close them, it was like Dr. Mal would appear in front of her again. She shook her head rapidly, as if trying to shake her thoughts away. Adrien noticed her scared look and gently took the hand she hadn´t tucked under the covers. She squeezed his hand, trying to erase his deepening frown.

"Hey, I´m here. Nothing is going to happen to you."

She nodded weakly against the pillow, quiet sobs escaping her. She just wanted her brain to stop functioning, stop making her remember what she didn´t want to. Adrien combed his hand through her hair, hoping it would somehow relay her. He knew it worked for him. She harsh breathing continued, but the sobs stopped. In every class she had had about patient who had been through a difficult episode, felt better once they talked about what was troubling them. She took a deep breath.

"I-I close my e-eyes and the o-only thing I-I see is h-him." He continued to caress her hair.

"You have nothing to worry about, I´m right here" He repeated with a gentle voice.

"I-I thought P-pr. Kelt wouldn´t t-ake me seri-iously, maybe I´ll get f-fired." Her sobbing started again and Adrien scooted closer, taking her half on his lap encircling her waist. She rested her head on his abdomen and cried loudly. The lack of sleep and the storm of emotions and events took the best of her. Adrien rubbed her back, letting her time to calm down on her own. Sometimes the best thing was to let it all out.

"You won´t get fired. I won´t let it happen Mari." Her heart fluttered at the nickname. Only her parents and Alya called her that, as well as a few close friends. He whispered sweet encouragements and compliments making her slowly feel better. She rapidly started dozing off, his belly being the perfect combination of muscles and fat so that she considered it the best pillow of the Universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked this chapter!
> 
> Eat chocolate!


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> One of you requested a chapter from Adrien´s POV in the comments.  
> Well, I didn´t write it really in his POV, but the chapter is focused on him.  
> I hope you will like it!  
> Enjoy!

The professor had given Adrien the day off to take care of her, but sadly not the following day. Marinette had been excused until further notice.

He had not be able to sleep very well for the past two days. His back was still sore from sleeping in an odd angle back at Mari´s place. He made a mental note not to sleep against a headboard anytime soon. His back was not okay with him sleeping like that... maybe he was simply getting old as well... He had left after taking a quick nap next to Mari. He had been woken up by a text he decided to ignore after he saw you sent it. Carefully, he had taken Mari out of his lap and loosened her vice grip on him. At first she had stirred a bit and he was scared he woke her up. After he managed to pry away from her tight embrace, she started to hug the nearest pillow closer, making his eyes crinkle as he tried to suppress to chuckle.

He had observed her sleeping face for a few more minutes, while sitting on the edge of the bed, before heading to the living room. He had to dug through the mess there in order to find a sticky note so he could write her something so she wouldn´t flip when he wasn´t there in the morning. After finishing he went back to her bedroom and deposited the note on her nightstand next to her phone, where she couldn´t miss it. He had also written down his number in case she needed something.

* * *

_Morning Mari,_

_as you probably can see I have already left. I hope you had a good night sleep._

_In case you need anything, don´t hesitate to call me: +33 123456789_

_I´ll try to come by later_

_Bises, Adrien_

* * *

Arriving at his empty apartment, he was greeted by his black cat Plagg, which didn´t seem to be pleased having been left alone for nearly two days. His captivating neon green eyes twinkled in the darkness of the room, while his tail flickered rapidly. Even if he had everything he needed: an automatic cat food dispenser and the whole apartment to himself. Being the anti-social cat he is, Adrien didn´t understand why he was so grumpy. He threw his keys and shoes somewhere in the apartment, not caring where they landed. The trail to his bedroom was soon clattered with his clothes. He threw himself on the bed only wearing his boxers shorts. Snuggling his pillow, he tried to fall asleep. He toosed and turned in his king sized bed, only to be more awake than before. He sighed deeply as he saw the clock indicating he could only get a few hours of sleep before having to actually get up for work. Getting up, he decided to take a shower since he hadn´t taken one in two days, not that he minded not taking one, but maybe it could help him fall asleep.

Once he exited the shower, he saw Plagg sleeping in the middle of the bed. Careful not to move him, Adrien tucked himself under the covers. He stared at the black ball of fur, which was slightly purring in his sleep. Extanding his hand, he scratched the black cat on the head. As a responce, Plagg stood up and snuggled closer to him, which surprised him since the cat hadn´t shown this much affection before. Adrien didn´t even register once sleep took him over.

* * *

I was difficult to wake up the next morning, since he must have had a maximum of 5 hours of sleep. Dragging himself out of bed he jumped into some clean clothes. He was greeted by the black cat, back to his usual state, annoying him by mewling non-stop for him to feed him. Adrein moaned as his first coffee of the day hit his tongue.

As he marched through the hallways of the hospital to reach his small office, he saw Dr. Mal coming out of the professor´s office. He didn´t like the indifferent look he was wearing, probably trying to act innocent. It infuriated him. The anger took place of his tiredness. The only satisfying thing he saw was his bruised nose that he tried to cover up with some makeup. Not knowing what he could do to this man, he was glad he turned into another direction, he was pretty sure he couldn´t keep his fists from flying if he was near. Adrien practically slammed the door of his office after him. He sat down and let his head fall in his hands. He couldn´t bear seeing the guy still wandering in the hallways, after he had witnessed what happened. He hated to see his usually cheerful and lively co-worker and friend this affected.

He still blamed himself for not coming in sooner.

He hoped the professor would act soon and take the right decision. He was practically sure that Dr. Mal had lied about everything... no he was 100% sure. He always thought that there was something fishy about him, but he still was a great coworker and a great doctor. He always blamed himself for not having seen through his façade. He was a good doctor and professional, but also a misogynist and other words he didn´t want to speak out. He gritted his teeth as he was reminded of the scene he had witnessed, the images flashing through his ind, monopolising his attention on the past and not the present anymore. He clenched his fists taking deep breaths, trying to calm down. He heard a loud knock on his door and before he could even tell the person to come back later, Pr. Kelt came in and sat down in front of him.

"I just spoke to Dr. Mal."

Adrien didn´t respond, what could he even say? His jaw could only tense as he prepared himself mentally for what the professor was going to tell him.

"As I expected, he is denying the accusations." He admitted and Adrien´s fists clenched further, his nails digging into his palms. "But well, the testimony of a victim and a witness… I don´t think he takes this seriously. I wanted to warn you as well... You are not going to like it, but well... He told me you made a false testimony in order to get him fired so you could take his place."

Adrien slammed his fists on the desk making it vibrated and a few pens fell on the floor. He let out a breathless laugh, practically turning into a hysteric one. The professor didn´t say anything further, letting him take in the news. Adrien couldn´t believe it. Who did the guy think he was? First he abused one of his friends and then he made false accusations.

"There will be a jury overlooking the case and they will make a decision. Since you know Miss Dupain-Cheng a bit better, I thought it would be best if you told her that she would have to testify in front of them again."

"Again?!" practically yelled Adrien. "She can´t go through that again! She already testified in front of you, which should be enough!"

Even if the professor wasn´t used to his ´inferiors´ to speak with that tone, he knew how infuriating the situation was for Adrien. So he let him take the anger out on him. After discussing a few more things in a more calm tone, the professor left and Adrien tried to finish his day without punching a whole in a wall.

He wandered through the hallways, praying Dr. Mal wouldn´t even think of crossing his path or speaking to him. He didn´t see him for the rest of his shift and not in the locker´s room as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!  
> Thanks for all your comments :)
> 
> So, what are your thoughts?
> 
> Updates are going to be much slower now. Sorry! 
> 
> Be patient and...
> 
> Eat chocolate (it´s nearly Christmas and St. Nicolaus is approaching as well) !


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was at first only 200 words long and I felt the need to write more, so there it is! (It´s more than 1,000 now, just so you know)  
> Enjoy :D

After he exited the hospital, Adrien went to one of his favourite takeouts and ordered two of his favourite meals. He sat down at a small empty table, waiting for his order to be prepared and ready. He lost himself in his own thoughts and reflections. He couldn´t stop thinking about her. He couldn´t wipe the look on her face from his memories as much as he wanted to, it was beginning to haunt him. He cringed at the thought alone and his anger rose again. He was taken out of his thoughts as a bell rung, signaling him his order was ready to take. Sitting up, he made his way to the counter, paid for the meals and exited the restaurant/ take-out place.

He was greeted by the cool air of September. He could see a few children coming out of a nearby school, reminding him of his own first school days. An exited child ran to his mother and threw himself in her arms, he began to explain fastly all he had learned today, while his other ran a hanfd through his messy hair and smiled down at him. Adrien smiled sadly at the scene, nostalgia replacing his anger, shook his head and walked towards his car. He had been so happy once his father had agreed for him to go to school... no he wasn´t happy, he was ecstatic! Even if he only got to school in troisième, since his father didn´t approve sooner. It made him realise how much he had missed by not being enrolled in school much earlier and how much he still missed his mother. Nobody had ever replaced her in his heart. He always had to carry this missing, empty piece of him. On some days the weight was unbearable. Even talking to his best-friend couldn´t help... Adrien knew there was only one person who would have been able to help him make him feel better, but she wasn´t there by his side anymore, nor would she ever be.

After tossing the meals on the back seats, he drove to Marinette´s apartment. He was thankful that the Parisian streets were not so much filled and that the ride went smoothly.

* * *

He rang the doorbell and Marinette came after a couple of minutes to open the door. Her surprised features showed she hadn´t expected him. Maybe she felt the need to be alone, but Adrien didn´t want to leave her without anybody. Even if she maybe wanted to be left alone, she needed the support. He knew she would be alone, and he didn´t want her to.

"Oh, Adrien! I- um... come in." Adrien removed his shoes at the door and entered the small apartment.

The apartment was cleaner than the last times he had been here. There were no stray socks laying everywhere on the floor or a pair of scrubs that they had accidently taken home, it had happened to him a few times already. The couch was facing the TV. The books were all in their right place on the shelves. By the quick look he had of the kitchen, she had washed the dishes and bought some food. She probably cleaned it to help her clear her head at the same time. Sometimes Adrien wanted to do the same thing, but since a maid came often, he never had any mess to clean up, so he started to go jogging or swimming if he needed to clear his head. It also helped. But sometimes he had this need to clean his own place. Knowing another person would take care of his supposed to be ´home´, didn´t make it feel as homely as it should.

He entered the living room and Mari was folding a blancket before tossing it on the couch.

"I brought some food!" He held up the take-out boxes with a big smile on his face. He could see that Mari still looked exhausted, she most defintly didn´t sleep this night either, but a faint smile crazed her pink lips. She made her way to the kitchen and came back with some real plates and two pairs of chopsticks.

They ate mostly in silence, only interrupted by Mari´s loud sighs, making Adrien´s heart twist in pain. Adrien didn´t know how to pop the news, she looked already so exhausted and defeated. He eased into the subject the more subtly he could until he finally he managed to tell her what was up next, what was going to happen.

"Mari?"

She hummed, not looking away from her plate.

"Mari, I-... I talked to the professor today... or he spoke to me."

She gave him an anxious look, dreading what he was going to announce her.

"I-... he said that he spoke to... well Dr. Mal this morning and... well you know, well you can probably can already guess that he was denying everything..."

He saw her tense and loose her grip on her chopsticks. She quickly took them in her shaking hand again, like she she was trying to hold onto something.

"I- well... the professor told me that a jury was taking the case and that... you will have to make a statement again..."

He sighed deeply as it crushed his heart to have to tell her she had to go through this again. Her shoulders shook slightly, but he could clearly see she was trying to stop herself from falling apart. He saw tears form in her eyes before she quickly turned her head away. After squeezing her hand on the table, she nodded a few times, repeating it wasn´t his fault with a broken voice. He stood up and made his way around the table and took her in his amrs. She pressed herself further into his chest, while he rocked her slightly. Silent tears were falling down her cheeks, while the silence prolonged itself. He was thankful that she didn´t regretted talking to the professor in the first place and for taking his advice to file a report.

After she had calmed down, he let her go and helped her clean up the table and settled to watch a movie on the couch. She had thrown an enormous red wool blanket over them and both snuggled in the comfortable warm couch. They sat close to one another, their shoulders touching. Adrien paid attention to the movie, he had to admit it had a good plot, something the movies today lacked off. He turned to look if Mari was okay, only to find her asleep on his shoulder. A small smile made his way up to his lips wihout him being even aware of it. She looked so peaceful asleep, looking like nothing was bothering her.

They stayed in this position for awhile. Adrien looking at her and brushing a few strands of black hair away from her face. After some time, he picked her up and brought her back to her bed, where he tucked her under her blanckets, making sure she wouldn´t be cold. He left a note on her nightstand, kissed her forehead and made his way back home, hoping to find some sleep as well and not be attacked by his cat when he would take his first step into his apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> Sorry that I haven´t had the time to update in a while (busy with finals).
> 
> So this was still more from the view of Adrien, I hope you liked it :)
> 
> Have you seen the Christams Special ?! OMG! It was... nonono it IS AMAZING! (Idk know when the english version will come out for the English speakers but be patient! :) ) But didn´t you think as well that the present was really small is comparison to the hat ? ^o.o^ 
> 
> Thank for your reviews!
> 
> Eat chocolate!


	29. Chapter 29

The jury already wanted to hear her already two days later. He had to admit, he didn´t think they would be this fast.

He had spent most of his free time with her, trying to keep her company so she wouldn´t drown in her dark memories. He would come straight to Marinette´s after his shifts, luckily he had to cover the morning shifts these past days, leaving him the afternoon to take care of her. He would always come back to Mari baking, since she had already cleaned everything in the apartment. She opened up to him, while he would help her. She told him baking had always helped her, relax and clear her mind like cleaning. She baked mostly small biscuits, since it would take her more time. He would always try to cheer her up, by making some of the most horrible puns.

Only his best-friend had seen this side of him, the real side. But oddly he felt the urge to show Marinette the real him. The first pun he let out was, made her eyes widen. She hadn´t expected it at all from him, only to make her giggle. She shook her head while smiling fondly, making his smile widen. Soon her giggles were replaced by laughter, even if sometimes she would roll her eyes at the really horrible ones.

After the biscuits being cooked, both decided to colour them. Even if it wasn´t Christmas yet, Adrien drew reindeers and Christmas trees… well at least he tried to. Mari would always burst out into laughter when she saw what he was drawing. He would always give her a fake pout. He leaned into her, taking a peak at what she was concentrating on. His eyes widened in wonder.

"Mari? Did you do this?" She smiled shyly, not meeting his gaze.

"Yeah… it´s not that great. It´s been long since I´ve drawn anything…"

"Mari it looks great, I can even say it looks amazing!" His truthful smile, made her blush.

Mari diverted the staring gaze, when she started to tell him stories about the bakery she grew up in. He couldn´t look away from her blushing face, feeling somehow proud to have made her blush.

He had never laughed this much in one evening, at least not since his mother had passed away.

* * *

He picked her up after his morning shift and they went back to the hospital. They used one of the back exit so they wouldn´t have to cross anyone´s path. She looked like she hadn´t slept at all, and Adrien couldn´t stop worrying about her. She visibly tensed as she saw Dr. Mal in the room where the jury had taken place and would take a decision. Using all of her remaining force she managed to relate the events. She kept starring at her hands as if she didn´t want to be aware of the strangers around her. After she had finished, she sat down next to Adrien and Dr. Mal spoke up, telling about his version of what happened. Adrien could feel Marinette tense next to her and rubbed her upper back. He heard her let out a whimpered sigh. Seeing tears roll down her round cheeks, made his heart twist and the anger boil within him. The lies flowed out of Dr. Mal mouth like the Niagara Falls, openly accusing him and Mari to make his life more difficult and get him fired. It was Adrien´s turn at . Mal tried on multiple occasions to counter what Adrien was telling, only to be quickly shut up by one of the jury. After he had finished, the jury asked a few questions to clarify certain points. Everyone was dismissed so the jury could make a decision.

Adrien and Marinette went to a nearby park and sat down on a bench. She hadn´t wanted to stay inside the hospital knowing Dr. Mal could be anywhere and Adrien couldn´t blame her. It was a beautiful day of autumn. The leaves had turned from a bright, lively green to deep shades of red and orange. Adrien proposed to eat something, but Mari wasn´t feeling up to eating anything. They stayed into a comfortable silence. Mari had calmed down, thanks to his comforting presence. He received a message from Pr. Kelt telling him the decision had been taken, so they made their way back to the hospital. Adrien tried to act as if he wasn´t nervous for Mari´s sake, but it was difficult to do so. He tried to tell himself that the truth would always win, but he himself knew that it wasn´t sometimes the case. He tried to go over their case a billion times in his head and knew there wasn´t a possibility that Mari´s statement couldn´t be taken seriously.

"The jury has taken a decision on this case, based on Miss Dupain-Cheng´s report. As you could probably tell we had two absolutely two different versions of the events. However the witness´s testimony and the physical proof could clarify this case. The jury has decided to declare Dr. Mal as guilty of the accusations against him. Dr. Mal, you will be immediately asked to clear your office from your personal belongings. Every contract has a strict no abuse-policy, which you clearly broke here. You are now no longer a member of the hospital´s staff. You will have to pay damages to Miss Dupain-Cheng of course. You are all dismissed."

The elderly woman finished and Marinette´s head hit Adrien´s shoulder. She slumped in her chair in relief. A weight had been taken from her shoulders. Dr. Mal had already stormed out of the room, probably knowing that throwing a fit wouldn´t help him in any way.

Adrien and Marinette slowly made their way outside. Suddenly Alya appeared and threw her arms around Marinette. She started whispering into her friend´s ear, but Adrien couldn´t hear. After releasing her, Alya hugged Adrien tightly, thanking him for being there when she wasn´t.

After letting him go, she mentioned to Mari to follow her so they would go back home. Alya starting walking away, but Marinette stayed behind. After a few seconds, she turned to face Adrien and looked up with her blood-shot eyes. She silently wrapped her arms around his waist and embraced him tightly. Adrien was a bit surprised, but quickly hugged her back. He heard her let out of flow of thank you´s. He chuckled and tried to make her stop, telling her she didn´t have to thank him.

After a minute, she let him go, much to his displeasure, and bid her goodbyes, slowly making her way up to Alya and out of the hospital. He felt a little lonely as he saw her walking away, Alya´s arm having replaced his on her shoulders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> So I hope you don´t blame for this short chapter. I know I could have written more explicitly what they were saying, but I wasn´t up to write a verbal battle between everybody in the room, so you´ll have to deal with that.
> 
> The story is more than 25K long, congratulations to me! X)
> 
> Thank you for your reviews and still reading ! :)
> 
> Eat chocolate!


	30. Chapter 30

A few weeks passes and Marinette and Adrien eased into a comfortable co-worker relationship. Her recovery took some time, but with the help and support of her parents, Alya and Adrien, she made it quickly back to the hospital. Alya hadn´t hold it against her that she hadn´t come up to her at first, when everything started. She even joked about the fact that she was being replaced by Adrien, since they often were spending their lunch hour together or meeting up in the nurses´ station for coffee. Mari blushed at her accusations, conscious that she had been and was spending an awful lot of time with him. Well it wasn´t awful, she couldn´t wish for something better! Her stuttering had completely stopped, which was slowly replaced by their teasing and flirting banter, which she was thankful for, she didn´t want him to think she was socially awkward… which she is… at least a little.

She was thankful that this whole affair hadn't spread in the hospitals´ halls. Every little rumour could blow up in there, like the plague. Her stuttering may have stopped, but her crush didn´t, evolving to be stronger every single day, with every single one of his smiles, everytime he laughed. He was her ray of sunshine not only at the hospital, but also every time she would think about him. Her crush was not only a crush anymore, just like she had told Alya after the first time they had talked about him.

* * *

Marinette felt someone creep their way behind her and suddenly a pair of warm, smooth hands blocked her vision. THe smell of disinfectant tickled her nose.

"Who is it?" She could hear the grin splitting the face of the person. She let out a small giggle.

"Adrien, you should really consider a career as a secret agent." He barked out a laugh as he leaned against the counter for support. She smiled to herself as she continued to prepare some coffee. She reached above her to take a second mug out for him, already knowing he is going to want one. Adrien had finally stopped laughing and was looking at her, pouring the coffee into their respective mugs. She handed him his mug.

"Dr. Agreste, could you please come for a second. There was a mix-up in the prescriptions and we would like to know which patient is getting what. And the pharmacy is refusing us something, if you could do something about, it would be great." Adrien looked at Marinette, who nodded.

"No problem, I´ll come right over." The nurse went back to her work.

"I´ll go back to the medication room in the north wing. I need to start writing my updates anyway, just come by if you want." Adrien smiled and nodded, making his way outside.

While taking a sip of her coffee, Marinette exited the nurses´ station. Slowly appreciating her small break from the hectic life of the hospital, she made her way to the north wing, where she had to work alone since there weren´t so many patients. As she made a right turn to enter the medication room, she nearly dropped her mug. A loud gasp escaped her and she brought her hand up to her mouth as she looked over the mess in the room. All the patients´ files were scattered on the floor, all the papers had flown out and made a huge mess.

_Who did this?! I´m going to kill that person! It´s going to take hours to clear all of this mess and rearrange the files with the correct papers!_

Groaning, she deposited her cup on the desk and sat on the floor in front of the mess. The sooner she started the sooner she could get out of here. But having ten full charts thrown on the floor was going to take a long time. Slowly she managed to make a huge pile out of the various papers from the different patients and procedures they had had. She groaned as she knew she was nowhere near from being done. She started to sort out the first papers in front of her, making new stacks, one for each patient. Mari groaned as she saw the stack was just as high as it was an hour ago. She was startled when someone sat down next to her.

"Hey, I knocked but you seemed focused on this… what are you doing?" asked Adrien, confusion written all over his face.

"Some idiot knocked all the charts down and now I have to clean it up." She sighed as she put another paper on its respective stack.

"Who did this? An intern? You know I can…"

"No! The interns this year are really sweet, they didn´t do that. I… I don´t know who did it, but I just know I´m not near to being done with this." She continued and let out a heavy sigh. She was already pretty tired. There may have not been enough patients for two nurses, but being the only nurse to take care of them was pretty challenging. She jumped in surprise as Adrien reached for the paper stack at the same time she did.

"Well, let´s get this done." He smiled genuinely.

"Adrien, don´t you have something else to do?"

"No, don´t worry Mari. I already took care of everything." His smile made her stop her questioning. Smiling to herself, she continued with his help.

They continued in silence. As they had finished half of the stack. Adrien took a second to strech his sore neck and back. Marinette watched his muscled arms flex above him and his strong neck and upper body shift under his blue scrubs. She couldn´t hold back the blush from crawling up to her cheeks. Still watching Adriens´ arms, she didn´t see him looking a bit confused as to why she had blushed. It wasn´t really warm in the room. Shrugging the question off, he asked:

"Did you already manage to write your updates?"

She let out a loud gasp and brought her hands up to her cheeks.

"Noooo..." Gronaning she buried her face in her hands. "Ah man, I am never going to get out of here!" She let out a small whine.

_I should have never left this room._

"Don´t worry. I´ll finish this and you start on your updates."

"Are you sure? I..."

"Yes Mari. Gogogo! Before the next shift comes." He said smiling. She blushed again, but quickly stood up and ran to the desk on the other side of the room. She shot Adrien a quick look. He was smiling to himself and appeared to be happy. Her heart warmed at the thought.

* * *

"MAri? Mari! Where are you?"

"Over here! In the medication room!"

Katja, the nurse covering the night shift entered the room, throwing herself in the seat next to Marinette.

"Hey Mari. And hello Dr. Agreste." The two greeted her back.

"Sorry, we have been pretty busy today. Somebody thought throwing everything on the floor wasa funny prank."

"Seriously? Some people are just really stupid."

"Yeah, well I still have to write a couple of updates and then I´ll tell you everything you need to know for the you covering the east side too?"

"Yes, this is going to be exhausting."

"Good luck."

Marinette quickly finished typing her updates and updated her colleague. Adrien had nearly finished, she helped him so the both could get out. Thankfully, he didn´t have to update any doctor, since his another one already did it.

Wishing the night shift good luck, they slowly made their way to their respective locker rooms. They got out at the same time and Adrien asked Marinette if she wanted him to drive her back home. She accepted since it was already dark outside and she didn´t want to admit it, but she was still scared something would happen to her and nobody would be there to help her.

Feeling bold she kissed his cheek to thank him for bringing her home. She didn´t him blush and his flustered expression due to the darkness in the car. He didn´t leave until he saw her close the front door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> I´m sorry I haven´t updated in a long time, even if I´m on a break... I didn´t seem to be able to write something good, I don´t think this chapter is that great, but well... I hope you still found it okay :)
> 
> So I won´t be updating before 2017. So I hope you will all have a great time with your family or your friends tomorrow evening :D
> 
> FYI: I have written a Christmas special :) (for this story)
> 
> Eat chocolate!


	31. Chapter 31

"Why aren´t you two dating already?!" Marinette sighed, she just had gotten home with Alya, and she was already bringing this up. She just had an exhausting shift and had no power to argue with Alya about her love-life. She didn´t even wnat to argue, she simply didn´t want to talk about it at all.

"Alya! He doesn´t see me like that! We´re friends and I´m happy with that." It´s true. She was happy to be his friend, to have the privilege to know him better than a complete stranger or a simple colleague. But she would be lying if she said, she didn´t want more than a simple friendship, even if she highly valued it.

"No you´re not! Stop telling me you are!"

"What do you want me to do about it!?" Marinette was slowly losing her calm, she didn´t want to talk about this now… she didn´t want to talk about this at all.

"Ask him out! I´m positive he would say yes." Mari sighed as she slumped into their old couch. She took her hairband out, letting her dark locks rest on her slumped shoulders.

"Alya…" Mari said her frown deepening.

"Don´t you dare give me the speech he doesn´t like me like that! He´s always asking me if you have the same shifts and don´t you dare tell me that the dejected look on his face, when I tell him you have the day off or start later, means something else than the fact that he likes you!" Mari simply sighed, resting her head on the back of the couch and closed her eyes, her exhaustion visible on her her small face.

"Even the nurse from the eighth floor is getting jealous from your relationship!" This got Mari´s attention.

"Lila?"

"Yeah, whatever. I don´t know her name, the Italian one with long brown hair."

"What is she jealous of?" asked Mari confused.

"Are you kidding me? She always comes down to flirt with Adrien, but half of the time he is already with you, and the other half he is working or just greeting her and walking away, leaving her no chance to jump on her prey! One day she was so mad she went to the wing you were covering her dump the patients´ charts on the floor…"

"SHE DID THAT? I spent hours trying to get everything in order! HOURS! Even Adrien came to help me." Mari groaned at the memory.

"Well I didn´t see her, but she went out with a smug smile. I just remembered… BUT CAN´T YOU SEE? Adrien never helps anybody! Well sorry he does help everyone, but he always helps you the most. He always asks if you need help or …"

"Alya. I think you´re overthinking things…"

"No Mari! Each time we have a meeting, he sits down next to you. When we all drink coffee, it used to be our thing, but now he was I come to the nurses station, he is already making you laugh and if you just saw the look on his face when he watches you laugh Mari… it´s like… like… I can´t even describe it! It´s like you´re everything, the sun, the centre of the universe!" Mari snorted.

"Alya, you are definitely seeing things." She stood up.

"Mari, just observe him and you´ll see what I mean." She met Alya´s piercing gaze and shook her head.

"I´m tired. Good night." She made her way to her bedroom, leaving Ayla behind.

* * *

"Are you up for a cup of coffee?" Marinette turned her head to see Adrien leaning against the front desk. She was just updating a few patients´ charts after having finished her round. Both of them were covering the afternoon shift, so there wasn´t much to do. They would always meet up for coffee, when they had some free time, or make themselves some free time, so they could hang out at the nurses station. A huge smile spread on his lips as she nodded eagerly.

"Let me finish this quickly or I´ll forget everything."

"Does Alzheimer's run in the family?" he asked teasingly with a mocking smile.

"Hahaha that was hilarious Adrien." She said dryly, but stuck her tongue out childishly, making him chuckle.

She could feel him looking at her as she was typing some data into the computer. He watched every single one of her delicate and elegant movements completely enthralled by her Beauty. After another twenty minutes, they made their way silently to the nurses´ station. Marinette threw herself on the couch, while Adrien prepared them some coffee. He listened to her updating him on some of his patients, before completely changing the subject to talk about the video game she had purchased just the weekend before. Handing her a steaming cup of coffee, he smiled fondly while he watched her talk vividly about this new game. Often he would find himself distracted by her Beauty, she was even more beautiful when she was excited and happy. The way her eyes crinkled when she smiled or laughed, and the way her eyes lit up when she was thinking about something happy were always making him smile and his heart burst out of his rib cage. He knew he had fallen for her… he had fallen hard without even realising it. Slowly while he was spending more and more time with her, next to her, listening to her, being her shoulder to cry on, his attraction had grown and he felt their bond tighten with each day, each second they had hung out together. He sat down next to her, admiring how the sun was casting his light on her pale cheeks making them glow and warming them slowly.

"So what did you do on your day off?" She asked curiously. Adrien quickly shook his head, stopping himself from staring at her. He stretched his arms lazily above himself, but didn´t catch the way Marinette checked him out, as his abs and honey-toned skin showed a bit. She foced her blush to cool down, but hid her face behind her cup in the mean time.

"Well… (He scratched the back of his head.) I have to admit I slept half of the day. I would have slept more but Plagg was hungry, so he kept waking me up." She giggled.

"I´ll have to meet the cat, that keeps making your life miserable, one day." He groaned while rubbing his face with both of his hands.

"Well Plagg is… Plagg."

"How did you get him?" She asked, suddenly serious.

"Well, one day he was on my balcony and I kept feeding him, so I guess he stayed… why?"

"Oh! Well I guess I was curious… I always wanted to have a cat… but well I don´t have much time and I´m practically never home. And you and Plagg seem to be the perfect match, I wanted to know how you found out he… was the right one… well the right cat? Sorry! I´m rambling again." Adrien laughed.

"You make it sound like we are lovers! Why don´t you get a cat if you like them so much? Does Alya not want one?"

"Nono… it´s just I don´t want to leave it alone half the day…"

"Well Mari, you´re not a cat lady yet. You have a life outside your apartment; I doubt the cat will hate you for it. " He smiled up to her brightly, making her heart swoon.

"I´ll think about it." She said smiling up at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> Sorry for the long wait! I know you expected a update much sooner, but I have these two huge tests coming up in two weeks. And when I sy huge I mann: HUUUUGGGEEE!
> 
> So, I know I told you I had written a Christmas Special for this story, but I don´t really like the ending I have written... so my question is: do you think their relationship is evolving to slowly? Or is it alright this way? (Your responses might (not) change what I will write next!)  
> Do you think I should gove Adrien a speciality? Like should he be a surgeon or a cardiologue etc? What are you suggesting?  
> Thank you for all your amazing comments ! Feel free to leave more ! :)
> 
> Happy New Year 2017! (We´re nearing February I know, don´t scold me! I´m always late. But better be late than to not show up at all! :D)
> 
> Eat chocolate! And be patient :)


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone !
> 
> I´m sorry to have not updated in a long time :(
> 
> ATTENTION WARNING: ! MENTION OF DEATH/DYING + LOT OF FEEELS!

Adrien barely slept that night. He woke up physically and mentally exhausted. His mind was continually buzzing and even a run couldn´t clear his head. Nothing would clear his head today, he was sure of that. He had to cover the afternoon shift and even if he was always happy to go to work, today wasn´t one of those days. No even bothering to take a look in the mirror, he grabbed his coat and decided to walk to the hospital, needing to feel the cold air whip his face. Maybe he had the hope the wind could blow his thoughts and memories from his mind.

He arrived at the hospital right on time. He slowly put on his deep blue scrubs and white coat and followed the rest of the hospital´s staff in the elevators. After a quick update of the patients, he went to his small office. Sitting down, he could only stare at his desk, incapable of doing anything else. He started at his desk for a while, his mind letting him relive painful memories.

Feeling like being alone in his office wasn´t helping him, he got out and started walking in the hallways. He passed by the medication room and saw a familiar black-haired figure. Mari was alone in the room preparing some I.V.s He sat down on the other side of the room, appreciating the silent comfort, even if she probably didn´t even see him, her presence was helping him. She was humming a song that was stuck in her head as she shifted her weight on her feet, quickly working on filling the IV with some meds. She turned around and gasped as she saw someone and let go of the glass bottle in her hands. It landed on the floor with a loud crushing sound. Adrien shot up as he was taken out of his deep thoughts to look at her.

"Adrien, you scared me!" She scolded him.

Looking at the mess at her feet, she sighed and grabbed some papers to clean the mess up. Adrien didn´t respond but helped her by picking up the glass shards. He didn´t register Mari´s concerned looks. After finishing up Mari prepared another IV and he sat down again, starring at the floor. Mari quickly went to the patient to hang the IV and as she went back to the medication room to talk to Adrien, he was already gone. She went to the next wing and helped her colleague asshe had much more work than she had. Once things had calmed down, she made a round to hang off all the empty IVs so the patients could move more freely. She went to the nurses´ office to grab a mug of coffee and sit down in the medication room enjoying a little moment of peace.

Suddenly a patient rang and she heard someone scream for someone to come. Mari nearly threw her mug away. Not caring if she had made a mess she ran towards the room. It was a room containing two patients, one of them was still screaming for someone to come. Mari looked over at the second patient only to find him incredibly still. She ran up to his side checking for a pulse, finding none. She pressed the call button again making the alarm in the whole floor go off. She started doing chest compression and she straddled the patients´ lap enabling her to compress his thoracic cage with much more force. At the first compression she heard his ribs crack under her palms.

In less than a minute came Adrien and another nurse barging in with a crash cart. She quickly updated them; she was only interrupted as she had to take deep breaths. Adrien was trying to find a pulse as he ordered the other nurse to inject the patient with multiple medications. Seeing nothing was working and that Mari´s was tiring out, he took the crash cart and helped Mari hop out of the bed. Adrien quickly put gel on the pads.

"Charge to 180." Mari quickly turned the machine on.

"Clear?" Seeing nobody was touching the patient, he released the electric energy through the patient´s body. The nurse checked for a pulse. They kept repeating this process at least ten times, and Adrien was getting more and more frustrated and angry. Throwing the paddles away he started doing chest compressions himself. Mari knew something was bothering him today. He appeared not to be going to stop. Mari laid a hand on his arm, catching his attention for a fraction of a second.

"Adrien…It´s okay, you can stop… Stop."

They still didn´t have a pulse. Adrien turned his head and looked directly into her eyes, as she stopped him from continuing. She could see deep anger and desparation in them. He abruptly stopped as he was staring at his dead patient in front of him.

"Time of death 19:47." He jumped out of the bed and pushed brutaly the crash cart against the wall. He stormed out of the room. Mari and the other nurse Tara gaped at his outburst, but cleaned everything up. Tara told her she would inform the family and take care of the paperwork. Mari thanked her and made her way to Adrien´s office, only to find it empty. She looked on the whole floor, the nurses´ office and the one where all the doctors always were. She looked on the floor´s balcony, finding it empty as well. She told Tara she was going to look for him on the roof. She found his white coat on the floor, and knew she was on the right trail.

She took the stairs, hoping maybe he was hiding there, since nobody ever used them. She arrived at the top and opened the door. The cold wind made her shudder, but she stepped outside. As she was about to go back down, she was him pacing in circle, muttering to himself, looking enraged and desperate at the same time. Her heart clenched as she saw him and her concern grew. He suddenly stopped near a wall, let out an outraged scream and punched the wall with all his force. He seemed to regretting directly as he clutched his left hand to his chest and fell down on his knees. Mari quickly walked up to him and kneeled down in front of him. He looked up and bowed his head down quickly again, but she had got a glimpse of his teary, blood-shot eyes. His shoulders slumped and Mari could only pull him into a hug. Adrien tensed and didn´t return the hug at first, but once she started combing her fingers through his silky blond hair and rubbing circles on his back he couldn´t help but bury his face in her small shoulder and lean heavily against her as he wrapped her arms around her small waist. She felt his tears wet her scrubs and she tightened her grip on him. She shuddered as the cold wind picked up. Adrien wrapped his arms more tightly around her.

"I´m here for you Adrien. I won´t leave." She whispered softly into his ear.

She felt him let out a deep sigh. She shivered again and she gasped as Adrien picked her up and carried her back to the staircase. Once the door was shut behind them and the cold wasn´t bothering them anymore, Adrien didn´t let go of her, still clutching unto her like a lifeline. After a few minutes, he let her get down on the floor, still not letting her go. As much as she wanted to ask him what was wrong, she knew he had to open up to her first. Since this afternoon he didn´t seem to be very talkative, although they would always talk, joke around during their shifts together. She missed this Adrien, but she knew she had bad days as well and couldn´t hold it against him even if she tried. His warm arms felt like heaven around her, and she let herself melt against him.

"I´m sorry." His voice whispered as it slightly cracked at the end.

"You have nothing to be sorry about."

"Of course, I´m having a bad day and took it out on everybody…"

"Everybody has a bad day Adrien." She said rubbing his back soothingly.

"This day is not bad… it´s the worst." She stayed silent letting him carry on if he felt the need to. "20 years ago… (he sighed and tensed) my mum died…" He admitted nearly shamefully. Mari tightened her grip.

"I know it won´t help much, but I´m sorry Adrien. But you know you always can come to me if you need to talk, alright?" He nodded as he buried his face into her hair, inhaling deeply.

After sometime both let go, knowing they were still supposed to work. Adrien excused himself to visit the patient, who had called for help and to Tara.

* * *

Soon the night shift came and Mari and Adrien both took the same elevator down to the lockers. They got out of the locker rooms at the same time and headed towards the exit. Adrien gave Mari a ride to her apartment. As he parked in front of the building, Mari turned to him.

"Do you want to stay for dinner? I could cook us something." He was a bit surprised by her proposition. Her eyes were pleading him to accept and he couldn´t resist those wonderful sapphire orbs.

Mari prepared a small salad, with croque-monsieurs. Adrien had perked up a bit and it made her smile. They settled to watch a movie. Mari was sitting on the couch with Adrien´s legs on her lap, while he was sprawled out on her couch. The movie was hallway through when she heard soft snoring. She looked at Adrien´s sleeping face and couldn´t help but blush at his handsome face.

_How does he manage to look good while sleeping? It should be illegal!_

Turning the TV off since she was sleepy herself, she stood up careful not to wake him up. She went to her room, taking her fluffiest and favourite blanket out. She threw it over him and he snuggled deeper into the couch, making her giggle. Not even attempting to resist the temptation, she placed a light kiss of his cheek. In her bedroom, she quickly jumped into her pink sweats and an old T-Shirt, and fell asleep.

* * *

Adrien woke up by the sound and smell of coffee (machine). He stretched on the couch like a cat and yawned. He buried himself deeper into the couch, wanting to sleep a little more. He heard light footsteps and a cup behind put down on the coffee table next to him. He felt the couch shift and acted like he was still asleep. Someone tapped his cheek lightly and he stubbornly only opened one eye to see Marinette with a cute bedhead. He closed his eye again quickly and he heard her giggle, making his heart warm in the process. Every time she would giggle and laugh, he felt like he had achieved something and it always made him happy and his heart warm. She was so strong, yet so sensitive.

"I know you´re awake, sleepy head. I saw your stretching skills." Adrien couldn´t hold his chuckle back. He rubbed his eyes and opened them. He gladly accepted the coffee she was handing him.

"I know we both can´t work properly without one first." He chuckled and sat up, while taking a sip.

"Did you sleep well?" He hummed, still appreciating the warm coffee on his tongue.

"Thank you for letting me sleep here, but you could have woken me up you know?" She simply smiled and shook her head. Adrien wasn´t sure as he caught what could have been a slight blush on her cheeks. Both drank their coffee is silence, still sitting next to each other. Adrien had no idea how Mari had managed to brighten up his mood yesterday. He usually wouldn´t talk to anybody, wouldn´t cry, or have an outburst. But yesterday one of his patients died and he couldn´t take it anymore. Even if he had never wanted anyone to hold him on this day, Mari had and she managed to calm him down.

Before he went home, he hugged her tightly again and thanked her. She simply smiled and kissed his cheek, using all of her courage. He felt his cheeks warm and cheek tingle, whereas she had a pretty pink blush on hers. He left with a small smile on his face that couldn´t be washed off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> I hope you liked this chapter, I felt like this story needed some Adrinette, I hope it turned out alright.
> 
> NOW! The question I wanted to ask for a long time (, but forgot each time I posted a new chapter): what do you think should be Adrien´s speciality? Cardiology, Oncology, etc...? Because I have no idea if I should give him one, but I feel like he needs it..hmm idk... maybe he could only be thinking about it himself and hasn´t decided yet *thinking*... well suggestions are welcomed, ´I´ll see what I will do with them later :)
> 
> Thank you for your lovely comments and your kudos :D
> 
> Next chapter might take a while as well, but I still promise you that one day you will get your Christmas Special (I wrote it around Christmas but well... I won´t wait until next christmas to post it XD don´t worry)
> 
> Eat chocolate!


	33. A Christmas Special (Part I)

December had just started and Christmas slowly neared itself. The halls of the hospital were beginning to be covered it all sorts of red and green paper decorations and fairy lights, which reflected on the windows warmly. The warm glow did his best to brighten up the mood of those who would have to stay during the holidays at the hospital.

Marinette liked this time of the year. The rain of November had finally stopped; instead a few snowflakes fell down the sky. A breath of optimism washed over the hospital, the festivities of the end of the year brought a certain hope for everyone. Nobody complained about the patients´ families bringing them cakes and other delicious meals. Marinette smiled fondly as she saw a child happily jumping up and down next to his father who just had been released. Suddenly her vision was blocked by a piece of paper. She turned around with the help of her desk chair to see Alya standing in front of her waving what seemed to be an invitation in her hand right in front of her face. Carefully eyeing her, she took the envelope and opened it.

_"_ _Dear Staff Member of the hospital,_

_We are happy to invite you to our Charity Ball on the 15_ _th_ _of December 2016. It is an opportunity to get to know other members of the hospital as well as raise funds for our hospital. (We require for you to check your schedule beforehand in order to avoid any lack of staff on the floors.)_

_"Thank you!"_

Marinette laughed, clutching at her belly before looking at Alya once again. Her look clearly said she had zero intention on going. She would rather stay at home in front of a movie, sipping on a mug of hot chocolate, than dress up and hear all the boring and fake speeches from the heads of the hospital.

 _No thank you!_ She thought.

"I already checked, we are so going!" Marinette let out a tired groan.

"No, Alya! I don´t want to."

"Girl we´re going. I wasn´t even asking!" Mari huffed not pleased with her friend´s decision; she knows Alya would drag her to the ball if needed.

* * *

The 15th came rapidly and Marinette´s mood dropped.

"Don´t make this face. If you wanted to know if he would come, you could have asked him."

"Alya! I can´t ask him that, it would be like asking him out!" Alya rose her eyebrow.

"Would it have been really that bad? You could have maybe gone together, like a date." Marinette flushed at the mention of the word ´date´. Marinette and Alya had gone shopping a week ago for the ball.

"At least now you know he´s single, be happy Nino told me, or you never would have known for sure. You know, I´m going with Nino tonight right? I don´t want you to crash my date. If you had asked him, you wouldn´t have been on your own." Marinette sighed deeply.

"Alya, I know plenty of people at the hospital. And don´t worry! Many people are going to come alone, without a date."

Marinette punctuated each word of her last sentence. Alya sighed through her nose as she closed the zipper of Marinette´s floor-length red gown. It wasn´t a cheap red, you could find in every store, the dress was like liquid blood made out of tulle and silk. They spent quite some time on their make-up. Alya had a little more on, but Marinette decided to take it easy since her dress was already eye-catching.

After Alya corrected her friend´s red lipstick a little bit, they made their way out of the building. Mylène and Ivan had been nice enough to offer them a ride to the hospital. The entry of the hospital was decorated with colourful ribbon and candles. The conference room of the hospital had been transformed into a beautiful ball hall. Everybody could see the hospital had put many efforts into turning this once strict and cold room into a welcoming, warm one. Ribbons, fairy lights, scented candles, bright lights on the dance floor. Some tables had been decorated as well in order to sit down after a dance.

The room was more filled than Marinette would have thought. At the buffet, some people were already taking a small bite while small-talking. Alya had left Mari as soon as she saw Nino. Not wanting to intrude on Mylène and Ivans´ date, she excused herself for the ladies room. In the hall she recognized some faces. Of course not everyone from the hospital was here: they wouldn´t even all fit inside. After getting a glass of punch, Marinette made her way to one of her coworkers who had been waving her over.

"Hey Lizzi! " Lizzi was one of the oldest nurses on their floor. She was in her late 50´s.

"Mari! You´re on your own? If there would be one person who came with a date, I would have totally bet on you!" She winked and elbowed her ribs, making her wince. Mari still let out a false desperate sound that actually sounded more real than fake...

"Well, I see you have some company." It was her turn to wink and she was pleased to see someone else as her blush. They watched a mature man make their way up to them. Marinette excused herself again, leaving the two to their date.

She wandered around the hall, stopping sometimes to let her feet rest. The heels Alya had forced her to wear where slowly killing her. Putting her balance on one of her foot, she tried to relax the other ankle. She looked at the clock: 7 pm.

 _This is going to be a long night…_ She sighed deeply, already a bit bored, having nothing to do and nobody to talk to.

The small orchestra suddenly started to play and Marinette turned around to watch them play. A few couples made their way to the dance floor and waltzed to the pleasant warm music. Marinette hummed the melody for herself and waved back at Alya, who made her way with Nino on the floor. She grinned as she saw the visible excitement on her face. As least one of them was having fun. The song soon ended, Alya and Nino headed over in her direction. Alya seemed to be upset about something and Nino tried to calm her down, Marinette had no idea about what they were arguing and cocked her head to the side, portraying a curious expression. As soon as Alya was facing her, the couple stopped their bickering and smiled brightly up to her as if mothing had happened on their way over here. Marinette had a suspicious look on her face as she saw their innocent faces, but she didn´t ask any questions.

They engaged in a comfortable conversation. Alya introduced them to each other. They hadn´t managed to meet with all the events and their different shifts. As Marinette talked to Nino, she couldn´t see as Alya´s smile widened when she shot a quick look behind her BFF. She grabbed Nino by the arm with full force.

"Nino, this is one of my favourite songs! We have to dance! Now!" She ordered suddenly, stopping his conversation with Mari. He shrugged and let himself be dragged by his girlfriend to the dance floor.

Marinette giggled, the poor guy was already being mishandled by her dear friend. She saw Alya whisper something into his ear with a wicked smile, which made Marinette instantly worry. Nino smiled knowingly as he whispered back into Alya's ear. Marinette accepted the flute of champagne a waiter handed her. She continued humming to the song playing, when she felt someone stand next to her. Continuing humming she turned her head seeing a perfectly cut black tux adorned with lime-green touches. She had to look up in order to see the person´s face and suddenly her humming was cut short as she recognized the person next to her. His gaze drifted from the dance floor over to her and he smiled brightly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And CUT!
> 
> Hello everyone!  
> I finally posted a new chapter and yes! This is my Christmas Special! I know I know, we´re in April! (^^") I´m sorry for taking so long.  
> At least I hope it was good enough for you! And I hope to read some positive comments:)
> 
> Thank you yo much for all liking this story!  
> I´ll try not to take too long with the following chapter!
> 
> Eat chocolate!


	34. A Christmas Special (Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I´m back with a chapter that took longer than hoped.  
> Sorry for taking so long :(

_Previous chapter:_

_"Nino, this is one of my favourite songs! We have to dance! Now!" She ordered suddenly, stopping his conversation with Mari. He shrugged and let himself be dragged by his girlfriend to the dance floor. Marinette giggled, the poor guy was already being mishandled by her dear friend. She saw Alya whisper something into his ear with a wicked smile, which made Marinette worry. Nino smiled knowingly as he whispered back into Alya's ear. Marinette accepted the flute of champagne a waiter handed her. She continued humming to the song playing, when she felt someone stand next to her. Continuing humming she turned her head seeing a perfectly cut black tux adorned with lime-green touches. She had to look up in order to see the person´s face and suddenly her humming was cut short as she recognized the person next to her. His gaze drifted from the dance floor over to her and he smiled brightly._

* * *

"Good evening Marinette! How are you doing?" She swallowed with difficulty, her throat completly dry.

She was still admiring the view in front of her and didn´t know if she tried to answer if her voice would come out or not. See, it´s not every day that you see perfect Adrien in a perfectly cut black tux that showcased perfectly how perfectly fit and perfect he was. The green accent of his suit brought his eyes out perfectly and made them shine like gems with the dim light of the room. The warm lights emitted from the multitide of candles seemed to cast a perfect glow on him, making his skin appear like honey. Forcing herself to stop marvelling about how good Adrien looked, she smiled and welcomed him as well, her voice a little more pitchy than usual. Not wanting to seem like a creep she forced her gaze elsewhere, not wanting to openly stare at him and him to think she was some sort of creepy creep. Not wanting to appear boring to him she gathered the courage to open a conversation.

"Alya left me for her boyfriend…" He chuckled as he looked out to the filled dance floor trying to catch sight of their friends. He gasped loudly as she saw with who she was dancing. His eyes widened and he bent forward a little as if trying to see more clearly who she was with.

"Nino?!" Marinette looked up at him confused, her nose scrunchted up as she was trying to figure out how Adrien knew him, but not her. (Alya is her best-friend after all.)

"You know him?" He chuckled again as he lightly shook his head, making his blond locks bounce on top of his head.

"If I know Nino? He´s been my best friend since lycée!" Marinette gasped and shot Alya an angry, yet curious look, even if she probably couldn´t see her from where she was standing.

_I´m sure she´s planning something again..._

She would have to corner Alya to see what she was up to… Alya always was up to something.

"He told me nothing about going out with one of my co-workers." He stated with a hint of sadness.

The music stopped as an elderly man made his way on stage fumbling with his papers as he arrived in front of the auditorium. A bright spot of light shined right on him, he tapped the microphone a few times, making everybody wince as an unpleasant sound came out of it.

"Good evening everyone! I hope you all have had a beautiful day. Be prepared now you are going to have a wonderful night! I am happy to welcome you in our humble _établissement._ This hospital has a long history, but if I start now the champagne will get warm, so I´m not going to even start. (The crowd laughed a bit.) …"

He continued his speech, but Marinette didn´t bother to listen; she never liked listening to the long boring speeches they were always giving at the events at the hospital. In the corner of her eyes she observed Adrien in his tux, at how when he shifted the light glowed differently on his skin. It was the most interesting dance of light and shadow Marinette had ever seen. He always seemed to find a way to make her breath catch in her throat. He seemed to be listening intently to what the man had to say even if Marinette could see a hint of boredom in his eyes. The crowd laughed a few times, but Marinette didn´t register it, too captivated by Adrien next to her. Only as everyone clapped their hands and the speech ended, did Marinette let her attention wander to the stage and clapped along with every guest. Soon the music started again and a few couples made their way to the dance floor again. She sipped the rest of her champagne, but hold unto her flute, not knowing what she would with her hands if she let a waiter take it away. She was lost in thoughts as she heard Adrien clear his throat beside her, making her whip around in surprise. She looked up to him questioningly as if to ask if he was alright, only to see he was already looking at her intently. He put his glass on a nearby table.

"Would you like to dance with me?" Her pupils dilated as she stood frozen in shock. Thankfully, her flute hadn´t fallen to the floor, crashing to the floor like in those dramatic movies. Although, she could crush it with her hands clutched tighly around it, as if hoping it would ancher her to reality.

She still managed to nod frantically after a couple of seconds. At least her reacting time had improved when he was asking her something. She put down her on glass and accepted his extending hand, internally turning to mush as she felt his warm, smooth hand. He held her hand delicately as they made their way to the dance floor. She blushed as he took her other hand and put it on his shoulder. She blushed profusely as he placed his own other hand at her waist. Taking a deep inaudible breath, she braced herself to dance… her eyes widened in shock as she realised he made her forget a very important detail: she had two left feet. Her head shot up and he shot her a questioning look. She gave him an embarrassed smile.

"I don´t know how to dance…" She admitted as she let her head drop. She heard him chuckle slightly, making her embarrassment grow. He bent down and whispered into her ear.

"Don't worry, follow my lead." She shot him a grateful look to which he smiled.

They waltzed together to the music. She accidently bumped into another couple, making her collide with Adrien, lessening the space between them. She tried to put more space between them, but it seemed as Adrien wouldn´t let her back away. (Not they really minded, did they?) She closed her eyes, knowing the steps now. She could smell his enticing cologne mixed with his natural odour, making the butterflies in her stomach flutter widly. Another song started and they were about to continue to dance, not bothering about changing their rhythm. Out of nowhere came an excited squeal and Marinette was shoved aside. Adrien, who had his eyes closed, was greeted by the sight of blond hair in his face and all over him, making him stumble back in surprise.

"Adrikins! Here you are! Let´s dance! I´m offended you didn´t tell me you were coming! Come on, the song has already started!" Chloé ordered.

Not giving him a chance to back away she took his hands and placed them both at her waist as she circled his neck with her own, pressing close to him. Adrien looked around the dance floor trying to find Marinette. He had no idea how he got in his situation, but he was sure Chloé made it on purpose. Not finding her, he sighed, a hint of sadness filling his eyes. Knowing he couldn´t argue with Chloé he figured dancing with her once, would make her leave him sooner.

After the song had ended, Chloé had other things in mind, wanting to keep him to herself. But Adrien quickly excused himself for the bathroom. He sighed deeply in relief as he excited the dance floor, after checking that Chloé wasn´t following him. He searched the hall for a familiar red dress and black hair. Feeling a bit warm, he decided to look outside. There she was, sitting on a wooden bench next to the fountain in the hospital´s garden. He walked up to her and took a seat next to her.

"I´m sorry about Chloé… again. She never knows when something is appropriate or not. Sorry." Marinette stayed silent as she stared ahead of her. After a minute, she finally spoke.

"You don´t have to apologize for her. She should." She answered truthfully, looking at him.

The breath was chilly, the end of the year was approaching rapidly, it was already December and she shuddered. Adrien took his jacket off and placed it one her shoulders making her blush at the contact.

They were sitting, a comfortable silence surrounding them. Adrien suddenly stood up and extended his hand. Marinette took his hand and stood up. She thought they would get back inside, but to her surprise Adrien put them into a waltzing position again. They could hear the music softly from where they were. There was so close, she could feel his breath pass above her head. They danced for a couple of songs… Marinette didn´t know, she didn´t pay attention to the music. She was solely focused on his warm hand in hers and the warmth and smell his body emitted.

Both of their extended arms felt tired, so she placed her hand on his free shoulder as he placed it at her waist. All of her senses were focused on him. She had her eyes closed; scared the sight would overwhelm her. After some time, she gathered up her courage and looked up only to see he had his eyes closed a swell, he seemed relaxed. As if he felt her stare, he looked down and their blue and green gazes locked on each other. Her heart started bumping faster under his strong gaze.

"You look amazing tonight. Red is definitely your colour." He admitted, making her blush at the sudden compliment, his eyes boring into hers.

Both started leaning in as if an unknown force wanted to bring them closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> I really hope you all liked this chapter. And I know you probably hate me for the horrible cliffhanger (^^") (i don´t blame you actually)  
> I know the updates have been really slow for each one of my stories, but I have quite some work to do. Sorry :(  
> Well, you can always leave reviews or contact me if you have any questions :)  
> Thank you for reading and all those great comments! 
> 
> Eat chocolate!


	35. A Christmas Special Part III

Both starting leaning in as if an unknown force wanted to bring them closer. They continued leaning in as they still held eye-contact with half-lidded eyes. Their eyes shone brightly even with the small lights emitted by the candles all around them. Her hand went up to hold onto his neck, while his hand tighten around her waist, holding on to her firmly as if he was worried she would run away. His emerald gaze dropped to her lips, making her cheeks flush even more. Their noses were only a few centimetres away, nearly brushing and they closed their eyes. She could feel his warm breath ghost over her flushed face and his face approaching hers. How long had she been imagining this? A couple of months? She was sure it would be better than everything she had imagined…

Suddenly a female voice spoke up.

"Mari? Where are you? You need to come see this! Get out! I know you´re here. Mylène told me she saw you go outside. You have to be somewhere." They heard her argue with Nino next.

Their eyes shot open as they stared at one another, not moving, still shocked from the unexpected interruption.

Realising their position, Marinette and Adrien took a step backwards away from one another, both flushed and trying to look like they hadn´t been interrupted doing anything particular.

"Marinette! You´re here. Oh? I am interrupting something?... Anyway come on! I have to show you something." Alya dragged her friend back inside, but she didn´t see the disappointment in her friend´s eyes.

She didn´t see Adrien for the rest of the night. The disappointment weighed on her small shoulders. She couldn´t stop thinking about the kiss. Well the possible kiss. She didn´t look at bright and joyful as the beginning of the ball, when she had danced with him. Even as she smiled at a couple of persons she knew, a lingering sadness and emptiness could be seen in her eyes. Her eyes appeared dull in the candlelight and not as lively as before.

_Were they really about to kiss? Who am I kidding? Why would he want to kiss me?_ _Though he was leaning in too… or was I dreaming again?_

Marinette sighed, left to be confronted by her own thoughts and crazy romantic scenarios. Well she had had the romantic setting and the man of her dreams… but of course her friend got in her way.

She only hoped it wouldn´t affect their friendship too much. She didn´t know if it was a bad thing or good thing that she couldn´t find him anywhere at the party. She wandered in the hospital´s large halls, going up to the sixth floor in order to leave Adrien´s jacket he had lent her in his office. Goose-bumps rose on her skin as she shed his jacket, feeling the cold around her.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket. She took it out, only to find a text from Alya telling her she would leave with Nino. She could only sigh again, a feeling of loneliness making his way in her heart.

_Great… now I have to go back home alone._

She looked outside only to see the pitch black sky covered with grey clouds as if ready to let it rain. Some people were already leaving the party and even if Marinette didn´t work the next day, she didn´t feel like staying longer. She made her way through the empty corridors nobody used, to land near the bus station she always took when she got out of work. She regretted not taking any coat with her, she thought she would freeze before the bus came. After waiting for what felt like a lifetime, a bus finally arrived and she plopped in the first eat she laid eyes on.

When she got home she plopped on her bed, after taking her dress and dessous off. She wanted to be angry at the world for a number of reasons, but somehow she couldn´t. Throwing the sheets over her, she decided to sleep only in her underwear, too tired to get up again. Her brain wouldn´t stop wondering what could have happened if Alya hadn´t interrupted them and it drove her crazy.

_Maybe he didn´t even want to kiss me. I mean: why would he kiss me? Me? Marinette? Simple clumsy nurse! No way, it was a mistake…_

_We´re friends, nothing more…_

Finally after some time, sleep found her.

* * *

Her alarm rang and she quickly shut it by throwing her arm around hoping not to have to open her eyes. She fell back asleep only to be roughly woken up by Alya, who barged into her room, seeing her friend would not get up without any help. Marinette had to get up a little bit faster than usually, since she actually slept more in than she originally thought she would. Alya practically threw her out, she had woken up earlier than Marinette, although she had to cover for the afternoon shift.

Needless to say that the interaction between Marinette and Adrien was quite uncomfortable and awkward to watch, since their "almost kiss" at the charity ball.

None of them mentioned what had happened the night of the ball. They tried to act professional when they needed to communicate, but avoided one another like most of the time. Both were feeling down, since the "friendly" relationship had abruptly stopped, it felt like a part of them had been ripped away. They missed the time they would always spend together. Both missed dearly their coffee time dearly. Each time she passed next to him, she only wanted to run away or craw and hide under a desk when he passed by. Each time she needed something from a doctor, she made sure to get another doctor than Adrien and when it was inevitable to ask him for help, she would kindly ask one of the other nurses to get it for her. She used the favours everybody owed her, and volunteered each time someone had to get something from another floor, just so she wouldn´t be on the same floor as him and have a chance bump into him. Even though she was always happy to do rounds with the doctors, she had shoved this task to somebody else each time, lying to them as she said she was tired of doing it.

So they had been pretty much avoiding each other in the hallways, scared of how the other one had taken their last interaction. Adrien as well didn´t know how to act and tried to avoid her. He had understood that Marinette was avoiding him and it made his heart ache at the thought. But he decided to respect her wishes and leave her alone even if it was slowly killing him.

When they did bump into each other, they wouldn´t greet to other. Marinette would mostly stare at the floor, and Adrien would clear his throat uneasily before stepping out of her way and leaving. He never heard the deep heart-broken sigh, Mari would let out each time after he left like this.

Each time Alya and Nino suggested they go out, they would find an excuse, saying they were tired, leaving the two to go on a date. Their best-friends didn´t know what had happened and took a couple of days to realise something was different with their friends. They had been so cooped up in their honeymoon-phase that they didn´t register their friend´s mood dropping exponentially.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> I know you will probably kill me for this update, I don´t blame you, but I don´t want this story to end yet. I have more to write! I know you all wanted them to kiss :( At first I had written a version where they would kiss, but I didn´t seem right to me.
> 
> First: thank you for your lovely comments and kudos ^/^. I´m really happy you all like it so much!
> 
> Second: The next update will take some time again :/. The next update will probably be in the late August. I would have liked to post it before, but I don´t have any Internet where I am going on vacation so... (maybe it will do me some good to not have any connection with the Internet for a couple of weeks).
> 
> I wish you all amazing summer holidays! (I still have to learn for finals :"( )
> 
> Eat chocolate ice-cream! (or salted caramel: it tastes like heaven *-*)


	36. The Bro Talk

"Bro! What´s going on between Marinette and you? And don´t you dare tell me it´s nothing, because I might have glasses, so I´m not freaking blind! Now spit it! Mari won´t tell Alya anything and you have been mopping around since the ball. I simply can´t see the face you constantly make anymore!" Nino threw his hands above his head, exasperated by how his frined was acting.

Adrien gulped, knowing he had no way to get out of this. He didn´t want to talk about it... at all. He scratched his neck, embarrassed he had to talk to his friend about his dating problems, he hadn´t done it in years, since he always managed on his own, but with Mari, it was like he was on a completely new territory. If he took a wrong step, everything could explode, leaving him with nothing. That´s not what he wanted. He didn´t want anything, but her, he wanted her, all of her. Of course being her friend was great, but he knew it was slowly eating him alive and since they almost kissed and their relationship had taken a huge hit from it. And could Nino really help him? Adrien couldn´t exactly call him an expert... and he didn´t know Mari at all... Adrien was doubtful about his friend´s skills to help him with this particular problem, but chose to ignore it.

"It´s just something happened and both of us don´t know what to do…" Nino kept staring at him, waiting for him to go on.

"We…I-I messed it up real bad Nino…" He lowered his head onto his hands, no stopping to shake his head, as if he wanted to erase what he had done, even if he didn´t really want to. It had been the best kiss he ever had.

"What did you do?" Nino demanded growing impatient.

"I-I tried to kcnf mer…" he mumbled behind his hands, followed by a sigh as he closed his eyes and his head dropped and his shoulders slumped.

"Could you stop talking to your hand? I coudln´t understand a single word from what you just said."

"I almost kissed her. Well, I tried to kiss her!" Adrien said more firmly, looking up. Nino didn´t look surprised at all.

_I knew it, I knew it! I knew we were going to interrupt something!_

_Why didn´t Alya wanted to believe me? Aarrgh!_

Nino cursed internally, now having actual proof that he was right and understood why his friend had left so suddenly. He didn´t understand why his friend had been so down the last couple of weeks. Adrien was usually a lively person. At first he thought maybe he had an awful load of work, but even this wouldn´t bring him down. But now Nino was confused: why would his best-friend be in this state when he finally managed to make a move, well a small move, but a move nonetheless on his friend/crush?

"And what´s the problem?" He asked needing more details to understand what exactly had happened.

"Well… yes?"

"Bro this wasn´t a yes or no question. Please try to answer once more. Where is the problem, and why are you drowing yourself in despair the whole day?"

"Yes, the problem is I ruined our friendship." Adrien added quickly, his hands cradling his head.

"What?" Nino caught the dejected look in his friend´s eyes.

"It was… great to be her friend, but I- but I messed everything up!" He groaned and hid his face in his hands again.

"Dude? Why would you have messed up if you are two love-sick fools?"

"I´m not a ´love-sick fool´. Of course I really really like her... but I´m no fool... wait... did you just said ´two´? As far as I know I´m the only one who has any feelings, since I just blew up my miserable chances with her a couple of weeks ago and slashed all positive thoughts she could have of me! Why does my life looks and feels like a tragedy? You know just like the ones they wrote in Ancient Greece. Oh my God... they already knew back there how awful life was: full of horrors, heartbreak, tears, screams and pain... so much pain...

NINO! Am I going to end like those in the tragedies?" Adrien gasped loudly and gripped his hair with both of his hands.

Nino let out a desperate cry for help, hoping maybe Alya would hear him and come to his help. After a few seconds he stood up, marched towards his BFF and started shaking him by his shoulders.

"Dude, shut up! Stop being a drama queen! We´re in the 21st century! Wake up! Nobody is going to end like those poor bastards in the tragedies, alright?"

Adrien seemed to calm down and come down on Earth back from wherever his brain had brought him.

"It´s simple did she seem to want to kiss you as well?! "

"Well… I-I… think so? At least I hope so!" Adrien ended while scratching the back of his head, his face contorted with confusion, since he wasn´t an expert (at all). Nino face-palmed as he groaned loudly, internally asking the lord why his friend was so oblivious. Taking a deep breath, he continued his friend´s interrogation.

"Alright! Did she lean in or not? YES or NO?" Adrien stiffened slightly as Nino´ s change of tone.

"Yes… wait no… I don´t know? I´m 75% sure..." Adrien narrowed his eyes, picturing their intimate moment, analysing her behaviour from his memories.

Nino couldn´t believe his friend and the look in his eyes said it all. He kept staring at Adrien with his eyes wide open and his jaw dropped. Was his friend really that bad at taking up THE signs?

"It´s just that maybe I was leaning in fast and … "

"STOP! Stop right there! Did she turned her head away from you?" Adrien looked stunned at his friend´s outburst.

"No, just when she heard Alya call for her." He answered automatically.

"Okay, did it feel like she would turn her head?" Adrien closed his eyes, trying to remember their moment in the gardens outside. He could still feel her gaze boring into his face. Her bluebell eyes looked so pure and lovely in the night, shimmering with the warm light of the candles around them. The light blush adorning her cheeks, from the cold. A small, yet radiant smile made his way on his lips and Nino could only snicker at his love-struck face.

"You´re right… I don´t think she would have." He couldn´t wipe off his smile.

"It´s great! See, you didn´t mess it up! You only messed up afterwards because you said freaking nothing and keep avoiding her! Mari is super shy; even I know that, she won´t come to you, even if Alya is trying to convince her. You know how women are complicated, she probably thinks you made a mistake and didn´t want to kiss her…or something else., that you don´t like her etc. Anyway! She won´t do anything about it and leave you your space. You have to man up and go get her! Or you´ll regret it!" Nino practically screamed, while shaking his friend by his shoulder, as if to try to bring him back to reality.

Adrien groaned tiredly as his friend kept shaking him, he had just ended an exhausting shift and his friend had showed up (uninvited he might add, just like he practically always did) and started interrogating him, demanding answers on his abnormal behaviour.

"She doesn´t think of me like that, and I don´t want to lose her…" Adrien avoided Nino´s strong gaze, and fumbled with the pillow on his lap, looking around his apartment.

"Adrien bro… really? Of course she likes you, but if you keep avoiding her you are going to lose her for sure. You have to take a risk." Adrien let out a whine, burying his face in his hands once again.

"Why did I mess it up in the first place?"

"No, you didn´t mess it up. Both of you did. So stop mopping around, would you? You like her?"

Adrien nodded his head firmly, showing no signs of doubt.

"Show her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> Sorry for the long update, but I had honestly no idea what to write... still haven´t gotten much more ideas and didn´t really have the time to think about it :/  
> I hope this chapter was still alright and that ´Drama Adrien´ was pictured clearly enough. I like old greek tragedies :)
> 
> The next update will take some time as well. But not as long as waiting for season 2 (hopefully (^^")).
> 
> Eat chocolate!


	37. The Christmas Shift -Part I

Since Mari knew that her parents would be in China for Christmas, spending time with her mothers family, letting their trusted employees take care of everything during the most busy season of the bakery, and that Alya would be visiting her family on the other side of France, taking Nino with her to present him to her family, she volunteered to take the big shift which merged the afternoon with the night shift. Everybody from the staff thanked her profusely, after they had seen her name on the list, hugging her to the point where she couldnt breathe anymore, they were ecstatic to be able to spent time with their families.

She didn't want to be alone for Christmas, spending it in front of the television watching some awful series and horrible, cliché Christmas movies the French TV was always so fond of broadcasting, while eating ice-cream or drinking hot chocolate. The worst was that they kept broadcasting the same movies every year, and Marinette was getting tired of them.

She could be useful elsewhere and enable her coworkers some time with their family. Mari had already done this twice and knew since they wouldnt be nearly as many patients as usually that she still would have some time for herself. The hospital always made sure to release most of the patient and coordinate the surgeries, so their recovery time would end right on time for Christmas and most of the other patients requested to be able to leave. Sure, emergencies would always come in, the hospital life was unpredictable, still is and always will be. She didnt mind when her shift would be stress-free and she could take time for her patients, talking to them, helping them walk a little bit in the corridor. But she also liked the busy days, where she sometimes wouldnt even have the time to sit down more than five minutes.

So shed rather do something useful during this holiday and now everyone owed her favours again, so it was a win-win situation, plus she would have a few days off after this shift, before having to work again. She would probably use this time to shop, profiting from the after-Christmas sales.

It was now the 24th of December and she was making her way slowly to the hospital. Marinette had slept in late, preferring to stay under her warm blanket instead of cleaning her room, like Alya had suggested before she had left the day before.

Inside the lockers room, she changed into her light blue scrubs, wearing a small tank-top underneath so she wouldnt get cold during the night. Throwing her bag over her shoulder, she smashed her locker shut, before making her way to the elevator. The elevator was surprisingly empty. As she stepped out of the elevator, she automatically looked at the large screen, picturing all the ECGs of the patients with a heart monitor, checking for something abnormal. Seeing nothing suspicious, she made her way down the empty hall, following the laughter and voices.

She was greeted by all the nurses at the nurses station, all sitting around the table, sipping at their coffee and eating some cake, a patients sibling had made for them as a gift. Everyone greeted her with open arms wishing her Merry Christmas.

She hadnt even checked who it was or who the other nurse would be. She knew from experience that the doctor would stay in his office the whole time. She had to take care of eleven patients, most of them were in a pretty good shape, so they probably woudnt need any help in particular. The other nurses told her everything she needed to know about them. She only had to hand out the medication and hang a couple of IVs and antibiotics and maybe a couple of blood transfusions when the blood results would arrive and determine if the patients really needed it or not.

The room filled out as more and more went home to prepare dinner for Christmas or to prepare to go to see thier families.

She had arrived early and chatted with Nurse Rose, while she was waiting for the next nurse to arrive.

"I already started preparing dinner yesterday, and my mother told me she would be making dessert, so I have fewer things to do. Plus, my husband can cook as well. I am such a lucky girl! Thank you again for taking the shift, Mari." Rose could swoon over her husband for days.

A smile made his way on Marinettes face, she remembered the time Rose fell in love and wouldnt be able to stop talking about him to everyone, even the professor, who had been taken aback when she had started and didn´t seem to stop, he had been caught off guard and didn´t know how to respond to her, utterly dumbfounded by her monologue on the love of her life. He probably never had been put in this situation (if the rumours are true, things aren´t going well with his wife). He is a cardiologist, but his knowledge in love wasn´t as impressive as his knowledge of the hearts anatomy and functioning.

The second on-call nurse had called the nurses phone Rose had had on her, saying he would be a little late due to the horrible traffic on the Parisian highway.

Rose had agreed to cover the east wing while the nurse was missing, it didnt bother her to help Marinette out. Marinette gratefully accepted her help. Another nurse, who had stayed a little longer, left after asking if she was needed. Rose said she would cover some of the patients, until the other nurse arrived.

After finishing her routine, she plopped down in front of one computer at the front desk, typing in every data she had collected, Rose doing the same on the computer next to her. She was halfway through when a message signalling a medical change popped up. Double clicking on it, she found out the on-call doctor for the night had changed and added a few things to the IVs and medication, since the patient would be coming back from surgery. Her eyes bulged as she saw the name of the doctor, who ordered the change and completely froze in her seat, her heart stopping in her chest from surprise. At least now she knew with which doctor she would share her shift with:

_Dr. med. A. Agreste_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!
> 
> I´m sorry for having taken this long :(  
> Well now after the Christmas charity ball, you have the "Christmas shift". So the merging of afternoon and night shift probably doesnt exist, but its my story so I can do what I want :P  
> Am I the only one who thinks that Dr. med. Agreste sounds pretty good? *-*  
> I hope you liked it (sorry for cutting the chapter right there ^^"), hopefully I will still get some comments.
> 
> Eat chocolate!


	38. Chapter 38

She had barely talked to him since the charity ball. Taking a deep breath she calmed down and repressed the urge to call Alya to come save her right away, knowing she would have to tell her what happened on the fateful night. Alya had tried to make her talk a numerous amount of times, but Mari had kept her mouth shut. She was pulled out of her catatonic state by Rose wishing her a nice shift, excusing herself that she couldn´t stay longer. Rose had already stayed an hour and a half more. Parisian traffic was unpredictable, well it was the problem is that there is always way too much traffic. She is thankful that she and Alya are able to live nearby.

"Oh, don´t worry Rose! Thank you for helping me out for an hour! Merry Christmas!" She waved, after giving her a hug, until the doors of the elevator closed.

Soon one of her patients came back to their floor, still asleep from the anaesthesia he had become for a small surgery. Rolling the bed back to the room, she took the patient´s chart to go over it, checking for possible updates. She went back to the patient who slowly woke up. She took his blood pressure, pulse and temperature, which is obligatory when a patient comes back from any procedure.

Scribbling every down on her paper, she looked at the surgery´s scar to check if anything was out of the ordinary. Seeing the patient had two surgical drainages, she carefully put them on the floor, so the patient could not accidently drop it if he turned around and tear them out. Marinette didn´t know how many patients she had already seen that had accidently pulled it out, leaving behind a huge bloody mess behind. It was dangerous for them as well. The drainage was there for a reason. The patient had accidently tripped, ending up breaking his femur, due to his fragile bones.

While she checked the other wounds and changed the bandages, did Dr. Agreste enter the room, to check on the patient himself as well. Very few doctors did this. They would never check up on the patient, only if the nurse asked them to.

Marinette tried greeting him as if nothing had happened two weeks ago. She failed miserably, she blushed profusely and stuttered. He seemed to be looking at her longer than necessary. His greeting was not the usual, although she couldn´t tell if it was good or bad different…. Simply different, as if something in their relationship had changed for sure now.

The patient started asking them questions breaking their invisible connection. Adrien jumped back into his professional doctor behaviour, answering the best he could with a small smile on his face, answering all questions the patient had.

"I had a brief talk with your orthopaedic surgeon, saying that that the surgery went well, but he also said that due to your fragile bones, you will have to stay and bed and not be able to walk around too much. Dr. Ortha wants the bone to consolidate first, which will be checked with an X-ray every couple of weeks. Your haematologist also sent me a message, telling me he would try to come see you tomorrow or the day after that to discuss your medication. Do you have any further questions?"

"No, thank you Dr. Agreste."

Adrien smiled, making Marinette´s pulse race even if wasn´t directed at her. She hadn´t seen his smile for some time now. She missed it dearly, her aching heart as proof of that.

Due to a certain blood condition, the patient was prawn to break himself something if he fell. While standing up, his blood pressure had dropped. His family didn´t catch him in time, and he fell on the floor, breaking his hip in the process.

After Dr. Agreste checked on the wound himself as well, looking for some abnormal bleeding or colouring in the area of the surgical wound, did Mari cover the patient with his blanket up recommending he had some sleep.

"Well, get some sleep. If you are in pain, don't hesitate to let us know." Marinette said.

Marinette left the room, scribbling on her piece of paper, Adrien high on her heels as he rapidly turned off the lights after the patient´s request and closed the door. She made her way to her computer typing the patients´ vitals in. She searched through the patient´s file for the number of his wife. Pulling the telephone to her ear, she typed the number in. After a few rings, someone picked up.

"Hello?"

"Good evening Madame. This is Nurse Cheng from the Paris hospital."

"Oh, thank you for calling me dear! I was waiting for your call. Please tell me he is alright!"

"Don´t worry, he made it of of surgery, everything went well. He is still sleepy from the surgery, so I would wait before calling him."

"C-can I visit him?" the woman on the phone asked.

"Well, I wouldn´t mind. But visiting hours are ending at 8 p.m. today exceptionally, if you want to visit him." Marinette informed her.

"Thank you so much." the woman answered, she seemed to be beeming of joy through the phone.

"Take your time on the road, please register first before visiting him. I´ll see you later."

The wife hung up after Marinette´s precious informations.

Mairnette didn´t even register that Adrien had followed her. Only as she turned around to work on something else did she see him leaning against the opposite wall starring at his feet, his white coat open to show some wrinkled scrubs. He looked up as he felt her watching him. The Christmas lights twinkled and cast a warm glow in the hall. He scratched the back of his head, not knowing how he was going to bring the subject up. He slowly walked up to stand next to her, looking down at her, his eyes only focused on hers once again. He decided to take a seat next to her after checking nobody was around to hear them.

"I-em… can we talk?" he asked sheepishly, his gaze drifting rapidly between Mari and the pile of unopened envelopes on the desk. Marinettes´ eyes widened as she was still stubbornly starring at the screen trying her best not to openly stare at him. Thinking she wouldn´t answer, he sighed in disappointment, making her heart ache at the pained sound. She never would have thought it would trouble him this much. She closed her eyes, feeling the coming rejection making the tears well up in her eyes. He misunderstood her silence, thinking she only wanted to forget what happened, what could have happened. Whereas she misunderstood his silence, thinking he was going to turn her down, gently of course, because he was Adrien, but it sure as hell wouldn´t any hurt less. She was practically wishing he wouldn´t let her down gently and would act like the most horrible person on earth, so she could get over him more easily.

Suddenly, as Adrien was about to open his mouth, the nearest elevator dinged, making Adrien look up rapidly and came out a young man with red curls in top of his head.

"Marinette! You´re here for Christmas too?" Mari´s head shot up to see Nathanael make his way towards them. She stood up and hugged him, grateful for this interruption. She didn´t want Adrien to ruin her Christmas. Subconsciously she hugged Nathanael longer than necessary. She didn´t see the hurt and deception flash in Adrien´s eyes behind her. His heart squeezed painfully in his chest as he saw her in another man´s arms.

"Man, this is perfect! I´m so glad I agreed to take the Christmas shift!" He hugged her tighter, before releasing her. Marinette could only chuckle as she saw his big smile, internally grateful for the distraction.

"Nath! Long time no see!" She was happy Nath had come unknowingly to her rescue. She sure as hell didn´t want to have burst into tears in front of the love of her life.

"I´m glad you´re here."

She forced herself to focus on Nath´s presence, managing to don´t sense Adrien tense next to her. She politely wanted to introduce Adrien, she turned around only to see he had already left. She didn´t know if she should feel deception and anger, so she pushed every thought aside, concentrating on what Nath was telling her.

"Let me get changed so we can start with a small round." Nath said before taking his scrubs and dashing to a nearby storeroom. Marinette sighed as she headed to one of the medication room, where she had prepared all the IV for the afternoon and the night. Nath came running in as she was about to finish injecting every medication in the right IV-bottle.

"Ready to make rounds?" Nath asked, excitement laced in his voice. Marinette could only smile at his enthusiasm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!  
> Sorry for the long wait (^^") Please, don´t hate me for tearing them apart more and more !
> 
> Happy New Year!  
> Eat chocolate!


	39. The Christmas Shift (Part III)

Both took their time to talk to each patient, laughing with the families that had come to visit. Marinette was able to forget Adrien for a couple of hours. After having seen every patient, Marinette and Nathanael sat down at the front desk, typing in the data they had collected and marking what they just had done for the last two hours.

"Hey Mari? Did you made your amazing cake for today?" She turned around in her desk chair, to see Nath´s pleading look. She giggled as she nodded her head.

"Of course I made it. I know that everyone loves it so much, so I even made two more, for those who work tomorrow. But that´s not the only thing I prepared." Nathanael beamed at her response, clearly looking forward to this.

"I will always work on Christmas with you! It´s the best shift ever!" He sung loudly with a bright smile on his face.

Marinette glanced at the clock to see it was nearly five o´clock and right on time the food for the patient´s arrived. She shot up and drove the cart into the hallway. Before she could start, Nathanael caught up with.

"Wait, let me at least do this, since you are already making us a Christmas dinner."

"Nath, don´t worry about it. I don´t mind. Thank you, but I won´t push every task back on you." Nathanael simply nodded, picking up a tray and knocking at the first door. After distributing all the trays, Nathanael and Marinette made their way to the break room which included a small kitchen. She took all the vegetables out she would need and handed the carrots and onions to Nathanael, who had volunteered to help her. As she was cutting the leek, her mind drifted to Adrien, that she hadn´t seen for quite some time. Realising she needed to stop thinking about him, she wiped her hands on her apron and searched for the radio remote. Soon the sound of happy Christmas song resonated in the room. She hummed along.

As she started to cut the ginger and paprika, she spoke up:

"So Nath, you still didn´t tell me how your six months trip was?" Nathanael chuckled.

"How did you think it went?" he asked back cheekily.

"That´s why I´m asking you!" Nathanael laughed.

"It was simply amazing, but I don´t think I would do it again anytime soon."

"Why?" Marinette stopped cutting and cocked her head to the side, looking at him curiously.

"Well, I´m pretty broke now." He finally said after a few seconds of suspense. Marinette burst out laughing.

"I´m sorry, so sorry, I shouldn´t be laughing." Nath chuckled along with her.

"Don´t worry it´s making me laugh too." (Well at least, he didn´t tell it was mostly because her laugh was so free and lively that it only made him want to laugh along.) "Also if I would be doing it again, I would want for someone to come with me... you know… it´s also fun to share experiences with someone." He looked at her intently, as if trying to read her mind. She nodded.

"Yeah, I get what you mean." She stood up to put a big casserole on the hot-plate. After feeling if the bottom was warm she dropped the vegetables along with some sesame oil.

While waiting for the vegetables to cook, they set the table for three, not really knowing if Dr. Agreste would be joining them or not. Nathanael took out the  _foie gras_  he had brought along with the famous  _petits pains_  from the Dupain-Cheng bakery, reminding Marinette to send them a small text.

It was now seven and after eating a quick  _amuse-bouche_ , Rose had made for them. Nathanael and Marinette headed out of the kitchen to collect the empty trays. She asked Nathanael to finish and headed down another hallway and stopped in front of a particular door. The door to the doctors ´ small office. To Adrien. Gathering up her courage, she knocked, waiting for a sign to come in. When after a second knock, Adrien didn´t react, she slowly opened the door, only to see he wasn´t even in his office. Her shoulders dropped as well as her mood. She slowly made her way back to the kitchen where Nath was already sitting again, having finished his task. She boiled some water in order to cook some noodles to go along with the meat, she already had prepared at home.

Suddenly, they heard someone enter the room. Marinette kept her back turned to the door, busy with the cooked vegetables and finished pasta. She dumped all of the food into it and turned around to set it on the table. She saw Nath and Adrien shaking hands and introducing themselves. Both were wearing a small smile, but something seemed off to her, but she couldn´t pinpoint what.

"Sit down or it´s going to get cold."

Nath sat down, which left Marinette and Adrien to sit down facing one another. Adrien shot Mari a quick look, seeing that she was focused on her plate and starting to taste what she just had cooked.

Her head turned as she heard Nathanael hum loudly as he took a first bite.

"Mari, this is divine! I could eat this every day!" He exclaimed.

"Nathaneal is right. It tastes amazing Marinette." Adrien said with way less enthusiasm than Nath. Marinette cursed the light blush that appeared on her cheeks, whereas Adrien kept looking at his plate, trying to finish everything on it even if he wasn´t feeling hungry at all.

Nath was narrating his trip around Europe, telling everything he had done during those six months. He was abruptly interrupted by Adrien´s phone ringing. He excused himself and left the room to enter it less than a minute later.

"I have to go to the E.R. they need a cardio consult. If anything happens, you know where to find me." With that he left to take the elevator.

The door slowly slid open and he entered the empty elevator, pressing on the button for the ground floor, before leaning against the railing on the side of the elevator. He checked his personal cell to see Nino had sent him a message.

N:  _Merry Christmas Bro!_

_N: So? How are things evolving with Mari?_

_N: Did you make some progress yet?_

_Yeah… how are things evolving?_

_I mostly feel like I´m currently running backwards…_

Not knowing how to respond to his best-friend, Adrien decided to only wish a merry Christmas as well. The wound is still fresh from a couple of hours ago, he didn´t know what he was going to do… he didn´t know if there was anything he could do to save their friendship at least. He closed his eyes and faced the ceiling of the elevator, letting out a deep sigh. As the elevator dinged, he passed his hands through his hair, before exiting. He walked to the front where a couple of doctors were seated.

"Hey, someone called me for a consult?" He leaned with his elbows on the high desk, seeing all sorts of cakes laying everywhere.

"Yep! I called!" A young doctor with Eurasian features made his way towards him and extended his hand.

"Dr. Le Chiên, emergency physician, but it´s Kim for everyone." Adrien smiled back at him.

"Dr. Agreste, cardiology department. But you can call me Adrien."

"Great, let´s go!" Kim picked up a file from the mess that lay on the desk.

"So the patient is a 45 year old man, complaining of " _flames and crushing in his chest_ ". No joke, he told me that. Well, the blood work is running already, but he is showing no other signs of a possible heart attack. But med school was a long time ago and cardio wasn´t really mine so I thought it would be better to call you. Better be sure. Ah! And also, he already drank quite a bit so that´s why I have more doubts and so…" Adrien nodded, walking next to his colleague as he was reading the file is his hands. The patient had no family history and didn´t take any special medication.

"Alright, do you have everything to perform an ultrasound?" Adrien asked. Kim nodded, gesturing towards a closed door.

"Do you need me in there?" Kim asked.

"No, thank you, I´ve got it from here." Adrien disinfected his hands before knocking and entering the room.

"Good evening Sir. I´m Dr. Agreste from the cardiology department. My colleague told me you had chest pain, is that correct?" The patient nodded, apparently he wasn´t very talkative.

"Did you eat something different than usual?" Adrien asked trying to rule out a few causes.

"No, even if it´s Christmas."

"All right. I´m going to do a quick ultrasound of your heart and arteries and try to find out if the blood flow is good." Adrien wheeled the machine next to the patient´s bed, asking the patient to take off his shirt.

After sitting down on a small twirling stool, Adrien squeezed some gel on the patient´s left pectoral, positioning the probe head exactly where he wanted. His eyes were fixing the computer´s screen, updating the patient about what he saw. He fingers were working rapidly on the keypad of the machine, making multiple screen shots as he pressed on the  _Freeze_ button. After having looked at all the ventricles, heart valves and a list of other things, he checked the blood flow, which didn´t look abnormal, and listened to the heart´s beating sound. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the sound, but not picking up something abnormal as well. To be sure he checked both carotid arteries.

While the patient cleaned himself up from the sonogram gel, Adrien took the photos he had printed and put them in the patient´s charts. He looked at the ECG: everything looked perfectly normal, which could often be misleading for small myocardial infarcts. He took his stethoscope and listened to his heart, not picking anything abnormal sounds either, meaning the heart valves were working correctly.

Suddenly someone knocked at the door. Kim entered, handing him the blood results which had come back. There was no presence of the specific proteins, like Troponin, indicating the patient was having a myocardial infarction. Nodding to himself, he explained everything to the patient, who was now already feeling better due to the pain meds Kim had prescribed beforehand.

After signing the patient´s release papers, Adrien and Kim made their way towards the front desk.

"Hey, you wanna hang out here for a bit?" Kim proposed, gesturing to the rest of the staff who was chatting and eating cake. Adrien smiled but refused the offer, he was responsible for every patient on his floor and couldn´t leave too long.

"Thanks, but I have to head back. "

After wishing the whole emergency staff a silent night and merry Christmas, Adrien made his back upstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry! I owe an apology to Alfirin B. I promised I would post her link in the last chapter, but since I am a forgetful person, I forgot when I posted the chapter!
> 
> Alfirin B drew a scene from this story :D Since FF seems to not want me to post a link, I suggest you go in the website/app aminoapps and search for the username Alfirin B.
> 
> Thank you all for your kind reviews. I´ m sorry the update is so late: I had finals and life happened (+all wisdom teeth are out!)
> 
> Eat chocolate!
> 
> Troponin is in every muscle cell and is one of the keys for allowing muscle contraction, besides actin and myosin. When you have a myocardial infarct (MI), the heart muscle cells "explode" and the troponin is released into the bloodstream.
> 
> Since the heart already takes out all of the oxygen out of the blood it can, when you are resting, the only method it has to keep up when you are doing sports is to widden the blood vessels, so that more blood can stream to the heart itself. When there is a blood clot blocking one of the vessels, the distal parts of the vessel are already widder, so when you increase your activity, the vessel cannot widden further, and the certain part of your heart, more particularly the cells that are provided by this vessel, can´t keep up and "die". Since heart cells can´t regenerate (can´t replicate), it means one part of your heart will stop functioning and scar tissue will appear.


End file.
